I definately liked the article. Sun Titan is also one of my favorite cards from M11 (as you also know from yesterday's article), and I quite liked this version too. Very powerful.
First off, good read, and having submitted my UW article I can say they're different enough to coexist. My only point of contention is Jace 2.0. In a heavy permission list I've actually won MOST of my games by fatesealing to his ultimate. However, your build seems to be more offensive than mine, so...
Additionally, I've been amused with just how much I love Jace Beleren lately, especially with Titan recursion. Again, good article.
Once again I like the list as a whole. I think you veered away from jank a little with your medalists as I think five of the twelve are pretty popular, but I can't fault you for listing useful fun cards that can be picked up for cheap. If you're going to recommend a cheap Time Warp, Capture of Jingzhou is half the cost of Temporal Manipulation. Keep the articles coming.
Evolution Vat is one I'm surprised not to see on your list. For three mana a turn you can reset your persist guys, hold down an eldrazi, or just make your creatures a little better. There are lots of varied uses making it a solid mana sink in many different situations.
I thought I'd add some of my favorite jank cards others interested in this article might enjoy: Fate Spinner was popular for a while as a general annoyance, but I haven't seen it used much recently. Chromeshell Crab acts as a bad Gilded Drake in a morph package. Oblation is the Arcane Denial of white removal for problematic cards like planeswalkers or can be used as a white Perilous Research. Fleshwrither is not unreasonable as a 4 mana 3/3 and it has potential as an onboard tutor for like costed creatures. Vhati il-Dal has all sorts of uses both on offence and defence, but I suppose it's more fun in multiplayer formats.
Oooh, some nice choices there. Mulldrifter definitely worth a top ten slot. Would be even higher, but even as a common he seems just a mite too powerful for fully fledged pet status. Now that seems inconsistent and unfair of me, but this was always about favouritism and subjectivity. Blink and Shard too, very nice. And both work well with Mulldrifter, coincidentally enough.
I feel bad as I just submitted my article on Sun Titan and it seems as if I wasn't the only one. My version is a straight UW one, but features some of the same cards. Its interesting seeing your take on it. I too have won games throwing a Sea Gate Oracle into the air with Elspeth.
Throwing a Titan in the air is even better though!
Basically people who trust their opponents are asking to be hosed by the George Baxters and Mike Longs of the world. Not everyone has integrity and this is a very good lesson to be learned about gaming. Many people consider gaming beneath the need to consider ethics. Essentially it is war and all is fair in war. Or thats the thinking. While OTHERs believe the opposite. They have the myth of Honor and integrity and are ethical so believe others to be so as well. So the how could he fall for it seems rational enough without any emotions falling into place. Now the fact that he wouldn't want to play it out anyway strikes me as lazy more than anything. He figured he was beat and didn't to suffer through it.
Second, it was limited. We were through most of our decks. It is pretty easy to know what your chances of drawing an answer. Many decks have no answer to Baneslayer, and others have few, and he had played some already.
Third, I know the player, and he tends towards emotional reactions. I used that.
Bluffs work far more often than you might think. They consist of everything from sending a 1/1 into an untapped Blinding Mage to something like this. Sure, this was an extreme bluff, but I wouldn't bother telling the story if he had called me.
Finally, I am pretty good at bluffing. Ask the people I used to role-play with, or the ones in my campaigns over the years. I tell stories well. That's what good writers do. All a bluff is is a partly told story, where the listener beleives he knows how the story ends. He's wrong, but sellign the bluff is, basically, selling the story.
BTW, every time anyone wins with a bluff, someone responds with "how could he possibly fall for that?" Of course hindsight is 20/20, but the bluffs work nonetheless.
Flippers, I'm definately not surprised that Sun Titan got your attention as well because it really is a gem for deck builders. And just imagine it in BYOS! A Kitchen Finks that never dies? Wasteland and/or Fullminator Mage every turn? Mangara of Corondor? Orzhov Pontiff? Promise of Bunrei? Wall of Blossoms, Spike Feeder? Bottle Gnomes? Oblivion Stone? Vendilion Clique?
The possibilites are just endless!
Splendid Belt, Sea Gate Oracle is definately a better card than See Beyond in almost every deck but not in this one. Jace's Erasure needs you to draw cards and therefore See Beyond works better in this deck (much better even).
Surely Sea Gate Oracle is a nice blocker, especially early game, but I can protect myself with my removal spells and counterspells, and with the amount of cards I draw with this deck, I almost always have my answer in hand.
Chakkan yours is a good deck but it's a bit different than mine. You prefer the (faster) Hedron Crab / Archive Trap route while I prefer a more control-ish version. Therefore I "go off" way later than you do.
I have to admit that Archive Trap looks really sexy but testing showed me that I need removal and counters more than anything. But now that you mentioned it, I think I can at least put it into my sideboard and bring in against other Control decks.
Relic of Progenitus was another card I had in mind, at least for the sideboard, because it deals with the Eldrazi. At the end I didn't add it to the deck but if I start seeing more Eldrazi (or other decks that manipulate the graveyard), I know what I'll play.
You don't need Jace's Erasure by the way because, as I said above, yours is a different version than mine. And therefore you don't need See Beyond as well.
By the way a suggestion: After I submitted the article, I re-discovered Telemin Performance. You should really try finding space for 2x Telemin Performances in your sideboard. You can't imagine how devastating it is against Polymorph decks, WU decks and/or WUr planeswalker decks. Not only you mill them for ~10 cards but you also get yourself a nice(!) Emrakul or a Baneslayer Angel!
i agree with stealthbadger, the kid who scooped just because he ASSUMED you had a baneslayer is lazy and self-defeating. so what if you had one, he could have lived through it. i'm not gonna lie, i kinda hate how people quit so easily. it's like, if they don't have THE perfect opening hand so they can build their 3-card turbo death combo engine, then they concede. to me, that's half the fun of magic, pulling it off when the chips are down.
funny, i thought the same thing when i first considered building a mill deck. U/B, although fun, just can't keep itself in check while grinding away at a deck. U/W was my next thought, and sure enough, it works. my deck is kind of similar, except i run the path to exile/archive trap combo and a few other things. i also actually have both jace beleren and mind sculptor because out of the two mind sculptors that i pulled, i sold one pretty much immediately. now i wish i would have sat on it so i could sell it now. i had no idea he, of all cards, was gonna go up in price.
fun article!! I'm generally a spike, but I play some casual magic on the side with my friends and I will be throwing many of these cards into my decks. I loves me some cheap rares!
I don't think I understand your bluff. You're saying he scooped to you suggesting that baneslayer is on your deck without even seeing it, and without waiting to see if he topdecks an out on his turn? Seriously?
Beautifully written, explained and presented as ever LE. One thing though, wouldn't Sea Gate Oracle be slightly better in the mill deck than the slightly underwhelming See Beyond? I know it draws (and therefore mills) a card fewer, but on the positive side it digs to the same depth and crucially provides another (much needed, surely) blocker?
Oh, and the Sun Titan / Jace combo sounds quite broken. Can't wait to try it!
I feel like Thursday Night Magic Online is one of the best ideas I have ever seen. It means that I can get into constructed tournament magic online, which means I will spend more money online, which means that Wizards will make more money. I love to play limited, so it means I can play limited for a very low cost. Awesome.
Hi, i just love your articles, and decided only now to participate cause i'm a huge fan of mill decks !
My main regret : seeing Mesmeric Orb out of Extended play...
I know this is a "build around me" deck, but on what turn do you usually go off ?
I just made a standard mill deck, that happened to mill a complete deck on turn 3-4 more than once and very consistantly on turn 6, WITH graveyard hate.
If interested, this is a list :
4 Hedron Crab
4 Wall of Omen
4 Archive Trap
4 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Into the Roil
4 Ponder
2 Whiplash Trap
2 Trapmaster's snare
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of progenitus
2 Jace Beleren v 1.0
This is perfect start :
- Island, Hedron Crab
- Hedron Crab, Terramorphic expanse, mill 12
- Terramorphic Expanse, mill 12, if a creature is played, perfect timing for trap enabler Path to Exile, then Archive Trap (if 2, then almost GG on turn 3)
I meet a lot of Eldrazis, opposed to what you said... but if i see one popping, i can continue instant speed milling (by cracking terramorphic or adding a trap), and after milling effect is resolved, then remove graveyard with Relic or Ravenous Trap.
I must confess that i'm even amazed at how people play these Eldrazis in decks that would almost NEVER cast them... and of course, when i don't get my graveyard hate in hand, it always pop out as one of the last cards of the library.
Example, Path to Exile (with 2 archive trap in hand and a Trapmaster's snare), cast one trap (nothing happens), cast second trap (nothing happens), tutor for 3rd with snare (kept in hand in case of Eldrazi), cast 3rd Archive Trap, and boom ! Eldrazi...
I know my lesson , don't be greedy (except in your Greed theme deck of course).
I'd be happy to hear if you got in trouble with your deck, cause you don't play graveyard hate. It's not good only vs. Eldrazis, but Vampires as well (bloodghasts), for instance.
Though I don't know if I should add some See Beyond or Jace's Erasure (according to your article) instead of Whiplash Trap for more consistency, but since it already win games in a tremendous way, i guess it might be too much icing on the cake.
Yeah, I bought my Assassins when they were expensive, go me. Always slightly frustrating to see expensive investments turn into budget friendly pets.
And those are some nice pets laughinman. I like Fecundity especially.
On the note of pet cards almost always involving some form of card advantage, another pet (probably around rank 7 or 8) is Arcanis the Omnipotent. Again, he didn't stick around often, but when he did it was game over. An extra three cards per turn for free? Good boy, have a biscuit.
I definately liked the article. Sun Titan is also one of my favorite cards from M11 (as you also know from yesterday's article), and I quite liked this version too. Very powerful.
Good read Don, keep it up.
LE
the echoing truth is for the storm matchup. snap is surprisingly good against the unicorn for some reason
First off, good read, and having submitted my UW article I can say they're different enough to coexist. My only point of contention is Jace 2.0. In a heavy permission list I've actually won MOST of my games by fatesealing to his ultimate. However, your build seems to be more offensive than mine, so...
Additionally, I've been amused with just how much I love Jace Beleren lately, especially with Titan recursion. Again, good article.
Good stuff. Always cool to be reminded of old cards and think of new applications. Thanks for putting this together.
this was fantastic, the skeleton was one that I had wondered about and you found a great way to use it with Sarkhan
Yeah many of those cards in combination are featured in my articles. My deck lists tend to focus on breaking enters the battlefield triggers.
Once again I like the list as a whole. I think you veered away from jank a little with your medalists as I think five of the twelve are pretty popular, but I can't fault you for listing useful fun cards that can be picked up for cheap. If you're going to recommend a cheap Time Warp, Capture of Jingzhou is half the cost of Temporal Manipulation. Keep the articles coming.
Evolution Vat is one I'm surprised not to see on your list. For three mana a turn you can reset your persist guys, hold down an eldrazi, or just make your creatures a little better. There are lots of varied uses making it a solid mana sink in many different situations.
I thought I'd add some of my favorite jank cards others interested in this article might enjoy: Fate Spinner was popular for a while as a general annoyance, but I haven't seen it used much recently. Chromeshell Crab acts as a bad Gilded Drake in a morph package. Oblation is the Arcane Denial of white removal for problematic cards like planeswalkers or can be used as a white Perilous Research. Fleshwrither is not unreasonable as a 4 mana 3/3 and it has potential as an onboard tutor for like costed creatures. Vhati il-Dal has all sorts of uses both on offence and defence, but I suppose it's more fun in multiplayer formats.
Oooh, some nice choices there. Mulldrifter definitely worth a top ten slot. Would be even higher, but even as a common he seems just a mite too powerful for fully fledged pet status. Now that seems inconsistent and unfair of me, but this was always about favouritism and subjectivity. Blink and Shard too, very nice. And both work well with Mulldrifter, coincidentally enough.
My pets:
Kulrath Knight
Mulldrifter
Momentary Blink
Reveilark
Eternal Witness
Flamekin Harbinger
Desolation Giant
Crystal Shard
Chances are my decks will contain one or more of these.
I feel bad as I just submitted my article on Sun Titan and it seems as if I wasn't the only one. My version is a straight UW one, but features some of the same cards. Its interesting seeing your take on it. I too have won games throwing a Sea Gate Oracle into the air with Elspeth.
Throwing a Titan in the air is even better though!
Don
You sir are full of awesome. That is one of the greatest bluffs I have ever heard.
Basically people who trust their opponents are asking to be hosed by the George Baxters and Mike Longs of the world. Not everyone has integrity and this is a very good lesson to be learned about gaming. Many people consider gaming beneath the need to consider ethics. Essentially it is war and all is fair in war. Or thats the thinking. While OTHERs believe the opposite. They have the myth of Honor and integrity and are ethical so believe others to be so as well. So the how could he fall for it seems rational enough without any emotions falling into place. Now the fact that he wouldn't want to play it out anyway strikes me as lazy more than anything. He figured he was beat and didn't to suffer through it.
First, this was paper. Paper plays differently.
Second, it was limited. We were through most of our decks. It is pretty easy to know what your chances of drawing an answer. Many decks have no answer to Baneslayer, and others have few, and he had played some already.
Third, I know the player, and he tends towards emotional reactions. I used that.
Bluffs work far more often than you might think. They consist of everything from sending a 1/1 into an untapped Blinding Mage to something like this. Sure, this was an extreme bluff, but I wouldn't bother telling the story if he had called me.
Finally, I am pretty good at bluffing. Ask the people I used to role-play with, or the ones in my campaigns over the years. I tell stories well. That's what good writers do. All a bluff is is a partly told story, where the listener beleives he knows how the story ends. He's wrong, but sellign the bluff is, basically, selling the story.
BTW, every time anyone wins with a bluff, someone responds with "how could he possibly fall for that?" Of course hindsight is 20/20, but the bluffs work nonetheless.
Hi guys and thanks for the comments.
Flippers, I'm definately not surprised that Sun Titan got your attention as well because it really is a gem for deck builders. And just imagine it in BYOS! A Kitchen Finks that never dies? Wasteland and/or Fullminator Mage every turn? Mangara of Corondor? Orzhov Pontiff? Promise of Bunrei? Wall of Blossoms, Spike Feeder? Bottle Gnomes? Oblivion Stone? Vendilion Clique?
The possibilites are just endless!
Splendid Belt, Sea Gate Oracle is definately a better card than See Beyond in almost every deck but not in this one. Jace's Erasure needs you to draw cards and therefore See Beyond works better in this deck (much better even).
Surely Sea Gate Oracle is a nice blocker, especially early game, but I can protect myself with my removal spells and counterspells, and with the amount of cards I draw with this deck, I almost always have my answer in hand.
Thanks again everybody for the comments.
LE
Chakkan yours is a good deck but it's a bit different than mine. You prefer the (faster) Hedron Crab / Archive Trap route while I prefer a more control-ish version. Therefore I "go off" way later than you do.
I have to admit that Archive Trap looks really sexy but testing showed me that I need removal and counters more than anything. But now that you mentioned it, I think I can at least put it into my sideboard and bring in against other Control decks.
Relic of Progenitus was another card I had in mind, at least for the sideboard, because it deals with the Eldrazi. At the end I didn't add it to the deck but if I start seeing more Eldrazi (or other decks that manipulate the graveyard), I know what I'll play.
You don't need Jace's Erasure by the way because, as I said above, yours is a different version than mine. And therefore you don't need See Beyond as well.
By the way a suggestion: After I submitted the article, I re-discovered Telemin Performance. You should really try finding space for 2x Telemin Performances in your sideboard. You can't imagine how devastating it is against Polymorph decks, WU decks and/or WUr planeswalker decks. Not only you mill them for ~10 cards but you also get yourself a nice(!) Emrakul or a Baneslayer Angel!
LE
i agree with stealthbadger, the kid who scooped just because he ASSUMED you had a baneslayer is lazy and self-defeating. so what if you had one, he could have lived through it. i'm not gonna lie, i kinda hate how people quit so easily. it's like, if they don't have THE perfect opening hand so they can build their 3-card turbo death combo engine, then they concede. to me, that's half the fun of magic, pulling it off when the chips are down.
funny, i thought the same thing when i first considered building a mill deck. U/B, although fun, just can't keep itself in check while grinding away at a deck. U/W was my next thought, and sure enough, it works. my deck is kind of similar, except i run the path to exile/archive trap combo and a few other things. i also actually have both jace beleren and mind sculptor because out of the two mind sculptors that i pulled, i sold one pretty much immediately. now i wish i would have sat on it so i could sell it now. i had no idea he, of all cards, was gonna go up in price.
fun article!! I'm generally a spike, but I play some casual magic on the side with my friends and I will be throwing many of these cards into my decks. I loves me some cheap rares!
I don't think I understand your bluff. You're saying he scooped to you suggesting that baneslayer is on your deck without even seeing it, and without waiting to see if he topdecks an out on his turn? Seriously?
Well, aren't we happy to make more opponent cards useless by playing less targets for removal ?
See Beyond also protects some higher cmc cards from disruption.
Beautifully written, explained and presented as ever LE. One thing though, wouldn't Sea Gate Oracle be slightly better in the mill deck than the slightly underwhelming See Beyond? I know it draws (and therefore mills) a card fewer, but on the positive side it digs to the same depth and crucially provides another (much needed, surely) blocker?
Oh, and the Sun Titan / Jace combo sounds quite broken. Can't wait to try it!
I feel like Thursday Night Magic Online is one of the best ideas I have ever seen. It means that I can get into constructed tournament magic online, which means I will spend more money online, which means that Wizards will make more money. I love to play limited, so it means I can play limited for a very low cost. Awesome.
Hi, i just love your articles, and decided only now to participate cause i'm a huge fan of mill decks !
My main regret : seeing Mesmeric Orb out of Extended play...
I know this is a "build around me" deck, but on what turn do you usually go off ?
I just made a standard mill deck, that happened to mill a complete deck on turn 3-4 more than once and very consistantly on turn 6, WITH graveyard hate.
If interested, this is a list :
4 Hedron Crab
4 Wall of Omen
4 Archive Trap
4 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Into the Roil
4 Ponder
2 Whiplash Trap
2 Trapmaster's snare
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of progenitus
2 Jace Beleren v 1.0
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Plains
10 Islands
This is perfect start :
- Island, Hedron Crab
- Hedron Crab, Terramorphic expanse, mill 12
- Terramorphic Expanse, mill 12, if a creature is played, perfect timing for trap enabler Path to Exile, then Archive Trap (if 2, then almost GG on turn 3)
I meet a lot of Eldrazis, opposed to what you said... but if i see one popping, i can continue instant speed milling (by cracking terramorphic or adding a trap), and after milling effect is resolved, then remove graveyard with Relic or Ravenous Trap.
I must confess that i'm even amazed at how people play these Eldrazis in decks that would almost NEVER cast them... and of course, when i don't get my graveyard hate in hand, it always pop out as one of the last cards of the library.
Example, Path to Exile (with 2 archive trap in hand and a Trapmaster's snare), cast one trap (nothing happens), cast second trap (nothing happens), tutor for 3rd with snare (kept in hand in case of Eldrazi), cast 3rd Archive Trap, and boom ! Eldrazi...
I know my lesson , don't be greedy (except in your Greed theme deck of course).
I'd be happy to hear if you got in trouble with your deck, cause you don't play graveyard hate. It's not good only vs. Eldrazis, but Vampires as well (bloodghasts), for instance.
Though I don't know if I should add some See Beyond or Jace's Erasure (according to your article) instead of Whiplash Trap for more consistency, but since it already win games in a tremendous way, i guess it might be too much icing on the cake.
I'd be glad to hear your point on it.
Yeah, I bought my Assassins when they were expensive, go me. Always slightly frustrating to see expensive investments turn into budget friendly pets.
And those are some nice pets laughinman. I like Fecundity especially.
On the note of pet cards almost always involving some form of card advantage, another pet (probably around rank 7 or 8) is Arcanis the Omnipotent. Again, he didn't stick around often, but when he did it was game over. An extra three cards per turn for free? Good boy, have a biscuit.
This will be interesting I'm in the middle of writing a Sun Titan article as well. I'm sure are decks will be very different though.