Creativity Mill

Last night, a very rare and wonderous thing happened; Mark and I played on the same team in a dual headed giants format! Well it wasn't really dual-headed giants because it was mark and I vs 3: Nick, Eric, and my brother. Even still, we made the most of it and played some very interesting games. One game, mark and I played 2 aggressive decks, Eldrazi Green and Bant Allies respectively, and bashed before the other guys could build up a board position. (They're decks were Mill (Nick), GW tokens (Eric), and Simic Graft (Kevin, my brother)). The next game Mark and I both switched to our WU control decks and won a 45 minutes long game. There were tons of other matchups, and they were all very distinct.

After the night of card slinging, Nick requested I write on this blog talking about Mill as a viable strategy. So here I will explain why Mill is such a small part of the metagame in every format. The problem with mill is that it is too slow. There are 4 ways to win a game of magic:

your oppenent has 0 or less life
your oppenent has no cards in their library when they try to draw a card
your opponent has 10 poison counters
cards that say "you win the game" or "target opponent loses the game" are fulfilled

Were going to disregard th 4th way to win, because you can't generalize it. When you start a game of magic, you have 20 life, 60 or more cards in your library, aqnd 0 poison counters. To win you must either deal 20 damage, move 60 cards out of their library, or get 10 poison counters on them. Based on those numbers, it's obvious that poison counters is the fastest way to win. When poison was still standard legal (there are only 2 poison cards, a sliver and an enchantment, and they are both future-spun cards from future sight) the winning dual headed giants team in the world was piloting side-by-side sliver decks that had 4 of the sliver that gives all slivers poisonous 1. However, it isn't standard, which means that the only other ways to win are by mill or by kill. Once again, you need to move 60 cards in their library to mill, or you have to do 20 damage to kill. That means it's 3x harder to win by mill. Yes I understand you start with 7 cards in your hand, but that's still 20 vs 53. The only way I would play a dedicated mill deck is if it was a mill/life gain deck. That would make it a 3 color deck (life gain is primarily white, and mill is primarily Blue/Black) and would be very weak.

That being said, I do have a mill deck planned on paper, but just not put together. Heres the decklist:

Creatures
3x Steel Wall
4x Maralen of the Mornsong
4x Hedron Crab

Enchantments
4x Bloodchief Ascension
1x Memory Erosion


Instants/Sorceries
4x Doom Blade
4x Hideous End
4x Sign in Blood
4x Archive Trap
4x Ponder
4x Dark Ritual


Land
4x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Evolving Wilds
3x Island
4x Jwar Isle Refuge
7x Swamp


Yes this is a mill deck, but if my opponent decks out, then my deck didn't work right. What is supposed to happen is I get Bloodchief Ascension and Maralen of the Mornsong out by turn 3. Then the Ascension gets counters when my opponent loses life to Maralen. Then when it is all juiced, I archive trap them (for 0 because they searched their library at the beginning of their turn) and when 13 cards go in their library, they lose 26 life and die. heres what i would consider to be the fastest start:


1 - swamp, Bloodchief Ascension
2 - Dark Ritual, Maralen of the Mornsong
(counter #1 on ascension during their turn)
3 - sign in blood on them (they can't draw cards, but they still take 2 damage), put 2nd counter on ascension
(counter #3 during their turn)
4 - search for Archive trap, mill kill on their turn


So the only reason I call this a mill deck is because that is what ultimately deals them the damage. I am consdering making this deck mono black to make it more consistant, i will post later if I come up with a new build.


Speaking of new builds, I just messed around with 3 of my decks, and conceptualized a cool one. When I say messed around with, I mean got rid of 2 and cut blue from the 3rd. Now enchanting angels is mono white. At the same time, my 2 soldier decks, Eldrazi Soldiers and Kor Weenies have been dismantled. I traded my Eldrazi monuments to Mark, and then took the deck apart because it was never good, even with the monuments. The Kor Weenies deck was a cool concept deck that would either win on turn 4 or burn out by turn 5.

The deck I conceptualized is called Boros Walls. Remember Boros Bushwhacker? That deck that got big and then died away in an incredibly short period of time just after Zendikar was released? Well this deck is the complete opposite, and it's worst nightmare. Boros Bushwacker was RW zoo-esque speed deck. This deck is all about stopping everything and then slowly killing you with Vent Sentinal. Here's the decklist:

Creatures
3x Cunning Sparkmage
4x Rage Nimbus
4x Vent Sentinal
4x Perimeter Captain
3x Soulbound Guardians
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Wall of Omens


Equipment
2x Basilisk Collar
3x Warmonger's Chariot


Enchantments
3x Lightmine Field


Instants/Sorceries
4x Lightning Bolt


Using cards like Rage Nimbus and Lightmine Field, entire armies of your opponents can be wiped out fast. If you have the money, Gideon Jura does an even better job of wiping out armies with Lightmine Field. When there are no more creatures, Warmonger's Chariot can have your huge defenders like Rage Nimbus and Soulbound Guardians punch in for 6 or 7 damage at a time. One other cool thing I threw in here is the Cunning Sparkmage + Basilisk Collar package. That combo got huge with the Boss Naya deck that LSV piloted to a 17-0 start at San Diego. Cunning Sparkmage and Basilisk Collar can be sided out if your opponent isn't playing a very creature heave deck, but the Stoneforge Mystic is awesome because it can grab both your powerful equipments.


Before I sign off for today, I won't to point out 2 websites that I have linked on the upper right hand portion of my blog. The first is the one titled "Mock Drafting". For those out there like me who don't use MTGO, this website will generate booster packs and you can play out a draft. At the end, it will give you a score for how well you drafted. On occasion, I like to print out my draft and make cuts and produce the mana base for the deck as if it were a real event, just for the practive of cutting cards and turning your pile of stuff into a major deck. 2 decks I recently drafted were UW and GW. UW deck stalled, drew cardsm and did small work with Caravan Escort until Kozelik, the Butcher of Truth came out, that draft scored me a 96%. The GW is one that I dream about, even though I only got a 50% on the draft. It featured 5x Aura Gnarlids and 4x Snake Umbras. Basically, by turn 4 I am bashing with a 4/4 guy that can't get blocked or killed and I am drawing 2x the cards you are.


The other website is the one titled "MTG Fanatic Deck Manager". This site lets you make an account and then post up your deck ideas online for others to view, rate, and comment on. I use this site all the time to save my crazy ideas, like the Boros Walls deck. I highly recommend you check it out.


Happy Brewing!