Another entry for the Obscure Card Challange:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/obscure-card-challenge-occ/
I was asked to build a self-mill deck. I decided to just post my Mesmeric Orb deck.
DISCLAIMER
This is how I play the deck IRL - it was not meant to meat your standards, metagame, taste or budget! It looks random with all those one-ofs, but that's not only my style, it works! This deck is proven - against (multiplayer) veterans. Oh and yes, this is a multiplayer deck. READ CAREFULLY!
/DISCLAIMER
Deck is build around Mesmeric Orb. Everybody mills himself for every card he untaps. I run Gaea's Blessing, so the self-mill will never kill me. The good thing about this: All I need is an Orb in play and at least one Blessing in the library - which means I can dedicate the entire rest of the deck to defense, library manipulation and mana generation.
And for defense, naturally, I picked mainly cards that tap things, so the milling goes faster. But there is also a lot of passive stuff going on, for example a card like Moment's Peace negates all the effort a player put into an attack 2 times which will cause him to mill himself for a lot of cards. Basically, the opponents will kill themselves while trying to kill you, but if they don't do anything, then that's okay for you as well, of course. Time is with you.
See How to Play section.
DECK PHILOSOPHY:
All you'll ever do is defend yourself and your opponent will eventually die! The harder he tries to kill you, the more he will usually mill himself. In fact, the deck is designed to lure him into attacking you and then you nullify the attack somehow.
Deck is aimed for multiplayer. You do have a few creatures, they are mainly there to:
* provide blockers
* pretend that you are playing a creature deck
* force the opponent to field more creatures (which results in more mill)
In most situations you don't want to attack with them, always keep them as blockers!
Likewise, as long as you don't have an Orb in play, be nice to everyone, don't attack, don't Cap them etc. Play innocent.
And if you have the Orb, don't defend it. Don't counter a Disenchant, don't go out of your way to prevent them getting artifact removal (when splitting a Fact or Fiction for example), don't keep it if you have the choice between the Orb and something else (when someone casts a Tribute to the Wild for example). The reason: You will get another (or the same) Orb back at some point, that's just a matter of time. But without the Orb you are not a threat and that means they don't have to kill you and gang up on you. It's okay. Let them think they have you under control.
SINGLE CARD STRATEGIES:
Turnabout:
This is mostly used to tap all of opponent's creatures so he can't attack. But during late game, with Orb out, you can tap all of opponent's lands during his upkeep, not only depriving him of mana for one turn, also milling him for massive amounts.
Icy Manipulator:
This is also mainly used to keep creatures from attacking and should rarely be used for anything else. It CAN be used to tap lands for example just for the heck of it and milling just another card (when Orb in play), however, it's not worth the trouble pissing off players for single card millings. Of course, if they are already genuinely pissed, go ahead^^ But even then I would always be cautious, otherwise suprises like creatures with haste might ruin your day.
Jester's Cap:
The main purpose is to strip opponent's deck from anything that prevents them from losing via library death (Gaea's Blessing, Elixir of Vitality etc.). But once you made sure they don't run anything like this, focus on stuff that turns games upside down like mass removal, combo pieces or creatures/permanents that you can't handle otherwise. Put a special eye on planeswalkers: they don't attack, they don't tap and they have up to 4 abilities that might annoy you (and you have minimal tools to get rid of them).
Moment's Peace, Creeping Renaissance, Life from the Loam, Reach of Branches:
They all can be played from the grave or come back easily, so you don't mind when they get milled. Yes, they seem to have bad synergy with Gaea's Blessing, but so far they worled well, especially the Peace.
Junktroller:
This serves three purposes (besides being a potent blocker):
a) You can "digger" something back into your library in response to an effect that exiles it from your grave (you have to protect your Gaea's Blessing at all cost!)
b) You can digger back opponent's cards that have effects from the grave or that could come back.
c) It an be used to play politics in multiplayer: You can use it to keep a specific player alive. Moreover, once his library is empty, you can control what card he draws every turn!
Wash Out:
It doesn't target, so it's a good albeit not permanent solution for anything hexproof protection from anything garbage. Ideally you have an Orb out and opponents mill themselves again when replaying stuff.
Tormod's Crypt:
Absolutely necessary these days, otherwise all that milling might backfire when creatures are animated, spells are flashbacked, lands are Crucibled and so on.
The difficult decision you have to make is to whether pop it or not in response to a Gaeas Bleassing trigger: If you use it, you are open to future graveyard abuse until you draw it again. But if you don't use it, you miss a "free" use.
I tend to not using it and saving it until the last momemt since I only have one copy if it. I'd love to add a second one but the deck is already over 60 cards and graveyard hate can be dead in many situations.
Karn:
He is mainly a potent blocker (0/8 when blocking!) but has additional uses. You have quite a bunch of artifacts and could grab a surprise win animating your horde and swarming someone, let's say after a Wrath of God has swiped all creatures. On the other hand, talking of creature sweepers: If Karn is already in play and someone casts a Wrath or similar, you can respond and activate Karn and turn THE OPPONENTS artifacts into creatures, so that they get nuked, too!
Island of Wak-Wak and Maze of Ith:
They up the number of creatures an opponent needs until he can hurt you. This is for multiplayer, so while you don't have any creature sweeper yourself, others will. Everyt time a sweeper clears the board, they have to start from scratch. They still get milled for attacking you :)
Constant Mists:
A horrible card. Play comes to a halt. Especially if you have a Glacier or Life from the Loam active ... in other words, exactly what you need^^
Tree of Redemption:
Very VERY good blocker at toughness 13 0_o and can save your ass a second time with it's special ability. However, do NOT use this at the very last opportunity for a varity of reasons! Let's say you wait until you are down to 3 life and lethal damage is on the stack:
- If they have something like a Lightning Bolt they repsond to you activating the Tree and you still die.
- Even if they don't, then that means you Tree has now a toughness of 3 and isn't useful as a blocker anymore (and gets killed by anything)
- Using it again would only set your life to 3.
If you, instead, use it earlier when you are still safe, say, with 7 life, then you can still use it as a blocker and have another 7 life to switch to later.
Power Sink:
A counterspell that forces the opponent to tap out, which causes lots of milling with Orb out. If possible, save this for the endgame where you have 1 or more Orbs out and every remaining player realized what you are doing and wants to kill you. In this stage you MIGHT use it to protect an Orb, but I still say, it's better to keep it for something that truly breaks your neck.
Narcomoeba:
Added those because they will enter play when you mill yourself, thus, providing a constant supply of chump-blockers later in the game: With an Orb out you mill yourself a lot and also hit Blessings frequently, so don't be shy using them as blockers, they will keep coming back without costing you a card or mana.