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I am a fanatic when it comes to mill (or Phenax, God of Deception) and thus a casual player. To be fair my “first” real deck was a mill deck filled with hilarious cards like Kraken Hatchling, Curse of the Bloody Tome, Dream Twist, a single Geralf’s Mindcrusher and some serious wacky combo’s containing Trepanation Blade. At the time it was the stuff of legends. The world was mine as your deck dwindled into your grave and I made sure your defeat was inevitable. In truth I didn’t even have a playgroup and played versus a friend at the time and he had a deck which was just as bad.

With every game I learned more about mill and how it was simply a turd, but a loveable kind of turd, fragile like a house of cards and with an Iron Will to annoy everyone.

A mill deck can be the thorn in a casual playgroup. Most casual players either love it or love to hate it. Now don’t get me wrong I do have a special relationship with mill but I simply don’t understand why people have such a strong feeling towards it.

For those who love it:

– Every time you mill you do not change the board state (this is not entirely true)

– Somebody has 60(+) cards but a person has only 20 life

– Remember things like flashback exist. So does reanimation.

– Requires you to build your entire deck around it.

For those who hate it:

-Every time you get milled, nothing really changes, you keep your hand and no creatures die.

-it gives you intel about your deck, that one off you had in your deck? You won’t pull it but that only gives you a higher chance of drawing into X.

-easily averted, one Elixir of Immortality is all it takes.

So what’s the big deal?

To the enemy, mill is like the land of missed opportunities. Every card sent to the graveyard is an answer not drawn or that epic creature not played (at least for all those decks without recursion). That’s why the casual kids hate it.

All in all I find it a loveable mechanic purely because it is synergistic in this deck and I love the look of horror on some people’s faces. It is easily countered and does little to change the game but those are bad reasons not to play something. We are here to have fun so lets mill.

Now as a player it might be hard to actually kill someone with mill. You must play a control shell and with it mill is just a bad win condition. So I soon chose a different road, I wanted to beat face with creatures that are synergistic with mill; in short I wanted something like mill-aggro.

By now the milk must snort from your nostrils as you think about what abominations must haunt this deck. And you question: surely this cannot work?

Well, I am going to show you a glimpse into the unthinkable. Here is the decklist:

Creatures

4 Jace’s Phantasm

4 Hedron Crab

4 Wight of Precinct Six

2 Consuming Aberration

Noncreature spells

4 Thought Scour

4 Mind Sculpt

3 Artful Dodge

2 Mana Leak

2 Ultimate Price

2 Psychic Strike

2 Mind Funeral

1 Ætherize

1 Visions of Beyond

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Jace, Memory Adept

Lands

12 Island

10 Swamp

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

The Cards:

Grab your jaw off the floor and think about what these bad boys do.

The beaters:

– Jace’s Phantasm can swing for Five as early as turn 3, oh I forgot he has evasion, yeah 5/5 beater with evasion for 1 mana. That is whatever way you put it, strong. The only requirement he has is that any opponent needs 10 cards in his or her graveyard.

– Wight of Precinct Six for a meagre two mana you can get a huge monster, he is the weakest of our beaters but I often see him as a 8/8+ which makes him simply an impenetrable wall. Now he lacks evasion of any sort so we have to deal with that.

– Consuming Aberration he sits at five mana and he is very sensitive for destruction but this thing is a total powerhouse. If he stays on the board for more than a turn well then this thing is pure value. He also lacks evasion but every attack means the death of a player so he is a must be blocked. Just think about it, every spell you play turns into a mill fest and it’s against each opponent so he’s a great catch for multiplayer.

The millers:

– Hedron Crab, this thing is basically the god of mill. Yes I know Phenax, God of Deception holds that title but I firmly believe Hedron Crab to be a god and thus he must be or become one. For one mana this bad boy will turn all your land drops into mill, giving you a steady stream of mill throughout the game. Now that is only a part of his prowess he also comes in the comfortable size of a 0/2 body meaning you can block 1/1’s all day long.

– Mind Sculpt. There are better options for this like glimpse into the unthinkable and breaking//entering but I chose this one simply because I am poor and it is easy to cast. Mind Sculpt is one of the most perhaps the most simplistic spell in the deck. It mills seven but it crucial to getting to fill that 10 card gap in your opponent’s graveyard.

– Mind Funeral, a great grind card for 3 mana. This will often hit about 10 cards on it own, but it could be a lot more or a lot less. So this card is somewhat a gamble.

– Thought Scour. I like (can)tripping, I love drawing cards and unlike most players it doesn’t make me feel blue. Thought Scour mills two and draws you a card. It’s just that setup to screw someone’s scry or that creature they just sent to the top of their deck. Don’t forget every card milled counts.

– Jace, Memory Adept. Basically big papa mill, he wins the game on his own milling a steady 10 a turn at the cost of nothing. If you are far behind he generates card advantage which can throw you back into the game.

Destruction:

– Ultimate Price. Destruction is always a meta call, my playgroup was full on black at first (so no Doom Blade) and with little multi-coloured creatures. So Ultimate Price was a great call.

– Mana Leak. It is that one counterspell that is easy to cast and hard to stop in the early stages of the game. Meaning it basically is the real counterspell for 1U instead of UU. Nothing better than to wait until they tap out and Mana Leak that thing. REJECTED!

– Psychic Strike. Is my hard counterspell that I cannot unsleeve. It also mills two. Which isn’t much by my standards but every little thing helps and I like answers.

– Cyclonic Rift. This card is just hilarious, got enough mana just clear their board! Cyclonic Rift into Mana Leak although that isn’t the most advantageous move. It is just in there because it is a good card and actually funny.

– Ætherize , the F-you card. Turns the tides and flips the table. It is fun and evil. Let’s return all those attacking monsters to the hand. People get pretty nervous when I suddenly leave 4 mana open for no apparent reason. I have baited people into not attacking by simply having this card in the deck. Oh and it’s is simply genious against tokens because they get destroyed.

The edge.

– Artful Dodge. This is where the deck got its name and its edge. All those gigantic beaters you have on the feel well they just swing for kill now. Unblockable for 1 mana, oh it has flashback, sounds pretty sweet right?

– Visions of Beyond. 1 mana draw 3 YES PLEASE. But you do need twenty cards in a graveyard.

– Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, Palace in the clouds. This beauty of a land is one of the best synergy you will get with Hedron Crab. It will simply allow you to hit your land drop every turn.

The game plan

You can go two routes with this deck:

Aggro/midrange (although it’s more like tempo)

This plan is fairly obvious on one hand, get your big undercosted dudes out and swing for the kill. The easiest way to do this is through Jace’s Phantasm and just hit 4 times. Now with Wight of Precinct Six we need a way to give him evasion. For this we have Artful Dodge. I only have 3 Artful Dodge and that may seem weird since it is such an important card in our deck. But since we have no intention of milling our opponents to death we can simply mill ourselves and wait for that Artful Dodge to hit the grave. Yes that makes our milling a way to search for our win condition. This is as soon as we find that wight is large enough to attack.

Control

This plan might seem a bit more obscure and is more about the long game. With a Hedron Crab on turn one and simply answers either in the form of a creature or things like Mana Leak. You are bound to hold out for a while. Just play for the long game, especially against other control decks this is the best way to go. Make them spend answers on your creatures because they must while keeping yourself safe from everything else they want to do. This deck can mill pretty hard so it isn’t that uncommon to see your opponent’s deck down to three cards before turn 10. The key difference between these two playstyles is how many cards you have in your hand and the mana you have open. With control you generally want to keep more cards in your hand and play a slower game.

Mulligan decisions:

The one thing you must remember with this deck is: no 1 drop, throw that hand away. It is extremely crucial that you have at least something to cast on that turn one. We must be spewing out advantageous cards like Hedron Crab or Jace’s Phantasm, even a Thought Scour will do.

You mostly want to figure out where you stand in the matchup against aggro you might want to throw your own aggro into the field since they are often bigger but against midrange you might want to keep a more control-like hand.

Upgrades:

This deck is far from perfect but for me it is just fine. If you however feel it is inadequate you can of course fine tune it to whatever your play style might be. Here are some things to consider:

– Extirpate/Surgical Extraction, this card is sick, it ruins game plans and destroys some combos it is also a bit of a gamble since you need the right cards in the graveyard. A good replacement for Thought Scour.

– Glimpse the Unthinkable, want more power in the deck? This will give it to you, turn 1 Jace’s Phantasm turn two into this and swing for 5, means you can kill someone on turn 5 with just your one drop. This would surely replace Mind Sculpt but beware you might want to include a better mana base if you go this route.

– Jace, Memory Adept. Yeah I have one in the deck but you might want to include another. It barely draw into it but when I do it’s simply sickening. You could probably swap a or both Consuming Aberration out for this walker.

– Thoughtseize, now this may seem weird but thoughtseize is an excellent turn one play for this deck it can destroy opening hands and give you an edge. You’d want to take this if you like to play it safe. Also a great replacement for Thought Scour

I don’t have a sideboard for this deck. That’s because it is meant to play a good game with friends. There are a lot of routes you can go when it comes down to mill. Wizards of the coast can’t stop spawning all these little turds that mill. I would like to see a different and more intriguing strategy for the colours blue/black but it seems that mill has a firm grip over the colour combination. And somewhere in my heart I have made peace with that. Mill can be lots of fun especially to the casual player. So I would definitely advise you to try it out.