Puschkin

I thought your deck bases on them? Depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Your mana ramp is off ... look at your mana curve, most of it costs 3 mana, some 2. So, if you don't draw an Arbor Elf, then you don't do much until turn 3! I highly recommend to add an additional 4 Llanowar Elves. And if you have those, you might want to switch something likeGreenweaver Druid to Priest if Titania, however, that's a risky move because if the opponent has removal, he might shrink your mana supply considerably.


I don't think Chord of Calling is useful in this. See, it's quite expensive and the Convoke doesn't help much because if you tap a manaelf to pay for Convoke then you can't tap it for regular mana anymore. However, there is no other similar card in Modern that could replace it.

Finally, I am wondering what you want to ultimately do. All that ramping and then get a Titan ... and then? I mean, all those ways to generate mana and to put lands into play but I don't see anything to sink that mana into (besides Ezuri), there also is no card with landfall. So, supposed you manage to get your Titan, what's the gameplan from there? Hope that what you've got so far is enough to kill? Something is missing here like Rampaging Baloths or a way to turn all your forests into an army like Jolreal or Natural Affinity do.

I am still alive :)
Here is something nasty, have fun:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/chained-to-the-anvil/

THORNBITE STAFF!!!
And Glissa, the Traitor!

I'd like to here how this worked out in actual gameplay :)

Well, that's what I would add, but people on this site usually don't want removal like that (because it is potentiall a dead card). My stance is: Even pure creature decks like yours run crucial enchantments and artifacts, in your case Honor the Pure, Prism Term and the Sword. But ultimately only you know what your buddies typically play.

Something else. The casting costs of your creatures are way too varied for Vial. What I am missing is artifact/enchantment removal. There are a few weenies like Kor Sanctifiers, Devout Chaplain or Leonin Relic Warder. That way, if the opponent does't have jewelry you still get some warm bodies. None of them are soldiers, though.

You have way too few ways to genrate creatures that you can Masspolymorph into. And talking of that, why Masspolymorph instead of regular Polymorph!? It's two mana cheaper and since you'll get a Worldspine Wurm you don't really need to go for more than one. I am missing Khalni Garden, Growth Spasm and/or Awakening Zone. These would speed up the deck remendously, especially if you also reduce Masspolyporph to Polymorph. BTW, you can use Polymorph defensively on an opponent's creature in cases of need. So:

Masspolymorph => Polymorph
Search for Tomorrow= Growth Spasm
Elspeth => Awakening Zone
? => Khalni Garden (not so sure what to remove for it, but without Else you probably need less white mana)

"Based around self-sacrificing and returning from the dead, the main strategy is to equip a vampire (mainly Falkenrath Exterminator) with Blade of the Bloodchief."
OK.

"The next step would be getting Sheoldred, Butcher, and Lifeline onto the field."
Nah ... they both cost 7 mana and you only run 18 lands plus 3 Dark Rituals ... Also, at point you can play them you probably don't need neither of those anymore.

1) The rest of the deck is compareably cheap, so I would replace both Sheoldred and Butcher with cheaper finishers. Anowon the Ruin Sage is very close to what the other two do but cheaper. Bloodlord of Vaasgoth and Malakir Bloodwitch are also possible contenders.

2) Now that we don't have to support 7-mana creatures anymore we can probably ditch the Dark Rituals, too. Most of the cards left cost only one or 2 mana. But for a deck that wants to sacrific creatures a lot it runs surprisingly few creatures. And it is missing one of the best creatures out there for this deck: Falkenrath Noble! It's even a vampire!

3) Next would be the Raise Deads and Disentombs. It's not exactly efficient to use those to get back Fume Spitters and Mogg Fanatics ... and for the other key creatures you probably don't need 6 of these effects. Luckily, there are TONS of alternatives:
- Death's Duet, Morbid Plunder: gets 2 for 3 mana
- Disturbed Burial: Has the option to buyback
- Reaping the Graves: Has storm
- No Rest for the Wicked: Huge potential to get more than one back (but must be played before the creatures die)
- Death Denied: Gets back X creatures
- Grim Harvest: Has recover
- Recover: Cantrips
- Stir the Grave: Get X creatures back INTO PLAY but has a limitation

4) You probably don't need to replace all 6 RaiseDead/Disentombs in step 3 - if you get 4 in any combination of the ones I suggested you should have enough reanimation going. This leaves us with two open slots. Usually I would recommend to add something like Nevinyrral's Disk because you have tons of ways to deal with creatures but can't handle anything else. But I also know that a lot of you guys just don't care and rather have more creatures, creature killers or burn, most likely because your friend's decks are all pure creature decks as well. Add Blood Artist in that case.

So you deleted those other two lists!? Damn. It took me abuot an hour to compile my list of suggestions and wanted to reuse it now for a friend of mine that just got back into the game.

No, it's a MAY effect.

Lands are permanents, so, yes. I have multiplayer Mesmeric Orb deck and it works wonderfully.

Mana base isn't as solid as you think - it's just that I play most of the decks I post here IRL and thus have to distribute my duals and other non-basics among them.
The deck has changed meanwhile a bit, for example I now have some City of Brass in the mix, I can use them to get counters on Sun Droplet so that I gain life and get the Meditation rolling.

Personally I like this deck a lot because although it features a combo, the combo isn't infinite. In best case I can deal as much damage as I have mana every turn, that should be fair, especially considering how comfortable players are these days to fling Coffer-powered Exsanguinates in multiplayer and similar things.

As you said, untap step comes before upkeep.

Check out this:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/continous-meditation/

Yep, works. Now lets please hurry to make a mono-green one, too, to complete the cycle so we can move on and build regular decks again :P

A mono-white mill deck would be better off using Mesmeric Orb or Keening Stone rather than Mindcrank. Mindcrank ist probably the worst of all options for white.

It suffers from the same problem in multiplayer. Sizzles or lighting bolts, people will still die from the damage way before they would get milled.

It's the old Hulk-Flash deck. You use Flash to put Protean Hulk into play. The Hulk gets you all the Disciples of the Vault in play plus the Marauders and Shifting Walls. Since X=0 for Marauder and Wall, they die immediately, triggering the Disciples.
(turn zero: Gemstone Caverns plus Spirit Guide)

As I said, it's an old concept that got banned fast in most formats. As you can see, the deck is currently illegal in all formats. Flash is not in Modern, banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage, so this deck is pretty much dead. I wouldn't pay any further attention to it, not only because of this, also because the author didn't provide any information, explanation nor credits. AND for the attention grabbing title, especially considering that you need an almost impossible perfect hand for that to happen.

Yes, Faith Healer is an interesting card, I recently taded for one, but more as a utility in enchantment decks rather than the main card.
Graceful Antelope sufferns from the same problem as Gaea's Liege and Cyclopean Tomb: The lands turn back to normal when it leaves play. And while, at least, it takes a while for lieged and tombed lands to turn back, anteloped lands turn normal as soon as the Antelope is killed. On top of that, there are only 3 other creatures with plainswalk in existance, spread across 3 colours ... and none of them is mana efficient!

I will go with the Faith Healer the next time I am in the mood to build a deck.

Okay, so this deck doesn't make sense since all that Mindcrank does is almost tripling the amount of damage you have to do in order to win. It would be a cool concept if Mindcrank would work for all players (because then you would have more time, too) but nooo, Wizards doesn't print symmetrical cards anymore ...

Okay, you have a red mill deck now but honestly, you could just use a Keening Stone in a red deck instead and call it a "mono red milling deck" ... it wouldn't even be slower.

However, if you want to put Mindcrank to good use, all you need to do is to couple it with Duskmantle Guildmage! Activate him with Mindcrank in play and the next card put into his graveyard or the next life he loses will kill him! However, it would mena playing black and blue ...
... but the trick also works with Bloodchief Ascension. Drawback would be that you need it to get active first, but on the plus side it costs only one mana and no blue. Would fit perfectly into an otherwise red burn deck like this!


EDIT:
Oh and if you don't want to go that route and really, really want a red mill deck ... then please do it right and add Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Fate, Memory Jar and maybe Howling Mine ... that would keep your hand filled with burn and whittle away the opponent's library at the same time (and you'll draw into Mindcranks faster). This might actually work since once you have more than one Mindcrank, you'll mill more than one card per damage done.