wickeddarkman

And now I got to my post number 1200! More yayness :D

Yay! I get to be "liker" nr 100!!!

I "liked" it, but was pretty sure I'd liked it in the past, but turns out I haven't liked it before, even though I like it.

I like it!!!

Not a bad try!
Replacing mesmeric orb with jace's erasure may just about work with the draw spells you've put into it all.

However, within my experiences you will be absolutely punished by aggro, and modern is currently about 52% aggro, so you will be punished in more than half of your games for not having a way to deal with aggro.

GOTHY:
Well infect is on a whole other sort of combo where you cannot either counter their turn 1 glistener or their inkmoth nexus, and they can play several spells for 1 mana to kill with, so they actually walk through counterspells.
Zoo uses a similar slip, as their first critter usually cannot be countered, and once the counterspeller uses removal zoo will have enough mana to cast another cheap critter AND pay to bypass a counterspell or simply casts 2 small critters.

Village bellringer does not walk through the same way these decks does, and splinter certainly doesn't either.
The burn part is fine, but the combo needs to slip through counters...

SORIN:
You need to slip through counterspells!

And Apostle's Blessing in sb, it will protect the deathtouchers, guildmage and crank.

KJSJ3:
I build longterm, so when suggesting stuff like the above I asume that others might be able to test stuff enough for it to show if something works or not. Even if Caverns of souls only produced colorless all the time, the fact that the above deck has 21 ways of getting red mana means that there is plenty of space for even up to 4 caverns. Cutting 4 mountains out will reduce it to 17 ways of getting red mana which is still overkill compared to how many islands a deck like merfolk or burn plays. The room is there for a change which occasionally will produce the right mana. In a few cases it even improves the white manabase a little. So it's a logical decission to start out with 1-2 caverns to see the effect in reallife :D though I doubt it would only backfire in the cases where you draw all caverns at the opening.
So essentially a minimum of 1 cavern can only improve the deck.

GOTHY:
The deck has been marked as competitive, so I treat it with competitiveness in mind. Competetive decks needs a gameplane for just about everything, so comments like "dies to removal/counterspells" points out fatal flaws that are unwanted in a competitive environment! No deck can have "Well I might not meet a counterspell deck" as an argument for taking it to a competitive environment because YOU WILL FACE EVERYTHING!

OKAY!!!

Serious question to a competitive design...

The deck has no way to deal with counterspells, so the combo is likely being stopped everytime they get one.
With goblin guide and village bellringer being scouts, why not have 1-2 cavern of souls against counterspells?
At the very least consider boseiju, who shelters all...

First time I ever build a deck around it I got a top-place in vintage with no power. I played a white deck with evasion and lifegain at a time where the most played vintage deck was goblins.

Later I also held some contests where people could base decks on 3 different manacurves and win a mox if they got a topplace, I had an extensive banning list and I've been told that my contest was the indirect cause in creating death and taxes in legacy.

Many of my own projects with these mana solutions have ended in winning an average of 3 out of 6 matches, but only after extensive building and redesigning.

There is a lot of power in the right amount of lands and spells, but it is a hell of a puzzle to stay within the frame when designing something based on it. If you aren't a solid deckdesigner these recipies might not cut it for you, but try them out anyways.

Once you build a deck that works within your area of play people will adapt to it within short time, so once that happens build a new one and work on it until it is defeated, then start picking which of your decks to play at random.

take out the 2 fireshrieker. The only card they really interact with is consuming aberration, and even if you played 4 aberration it would be to loose as a combo. Either those or duskmantle guildmage which belongs more in a crank-deck :D

I once build a milldeck based around hardcasting archive trap as a finisher, and did a lot of effort to find out how much mana would be needed for that. I ended out on exactly 25 lands. If you want to stay close to your concept of large cost stuff paired with cheap defence go with 25 lands and stay within a max cost of 5 mana.
If you can manage to stall other players long enough, 5cc creatures may rule the board.

No problem.
Another thing about the deck is that you have 14 cards costing 5+ which is a huge problem with only 20 lands.

A lot of players fall into the "1 third must be land" trap originally founded by someone in the past.
Pro players know this ain't true, but why bother telling newcommers?

During iceage I was told I was the worst player in the world, so I looked it up and saw that it was true, so I decided to do something about it. The next 10 years or so I gradually perfected a manaoptimization program and used it to improve my game. I'm currently the number 324 best lifetime player in DK, so the program worked.

I produced a manacurve consisting of 22 lands, 12 cards costing 1, 12 cards costing 2 and 14 cards costing 3 and it was extremely solid (Still is if you want to try building a creatures only deck around it).

Now if a computer tells you that you need 22 mana to reliably play spells costing 3, then logic dictates that 20 mana will never cast spells costing 5+ at a reliable pace :D

By the way I spent years trying to find the perfect build using curves it generated.
The goal I gave it was to beat a "goldfish" (A player that does not play anything) as fast as possible, and only using creatures with a power equal to their castingcost, which had no abilities at all.

It provided 2 solid solutions that I used over the years, one faster than the other, but from play experiences I ended up using the deck with 14 3-costs because it had 2 creatures more, and magic usually hates aggro with a lot of removal.

In the case you want to test the fastest solution it's 24 lands, 12 cards costing 1, 12 cards costing 2, 8 cards costing 3 and 4 cards costing 4. You won't find many manacurves that can kill reliably at turn 5-6 with creatures without specials.

In that case you would need 4 crypt ghast to get them reliably, and 20 mana does not generate 4 lands very fast, I know because I played 22 lands for years to drive a deck with 14 cards costing 3 mana and it was exactly within it's limits because the mana was computer-generated. 20 does not drive this deck, even if you have 4 ghasts for ramping it.

But it may be that I am just too competitive :D

Is it casual?

It's a very nice concept with massive drawspells and the tutor while most cards have secondary effects.

I'd try out the deck with some cheap taskspecific discard as well (At least 5), and more sphinx's revelation.

I guess this is a test-deck!

Run 4 shriekhorn instead of tome scour.
I've tested the card in more than 200 games and it mills 5.something on an average, which means it mills more than tome scour.
It also allows you to disrupt any scry/manipulation of top card that an opponent may have.

If you dislike shriekhorn try out dream twist. In the long run it mills one more than tome scour.

Interresting concept.
Let us know if it wins at a tourney :D

With all the 5-6 mana costs this deck needs to play 25 lands at minimum...
Once you got that much land You would also prosper by using at least 5 discard cards or cheap removal.

White adds plenty to mill-designs depending on strategy type, but yes, white is best for sb options, as UB does not have so many tools against artisfacts or enchantments as white does.

And there's allways a reason as to WHY the meta consists of more than 50% of 3cc.

Cutting a color always rob you of a lot of options. Most of the meta runs 3colors+
If dismember is to harsh, support with crypt incursion.

Damnation is damned slow. I have been toying with black sun's zenith for that reason against the faster aggro out there, but in the end I might use both in sb for versatility

And get rid of flooding as it is the least milling card among mill-cards out there. No opponent will use the lands once they are enchanted and even decks with a low amount of mana can play through it by using other lands. I've tested most millcards out there extensively and chronic flooding won't be of any use unless you use something that tap lands. Mursh's suggestion of propaganda might justify flooding, but don't count on it too much. For that mana mesmeric orb does a lot more milling and works no matter what land they tap :D (And it works even better with propaganda than flooding will)

steel overseer instead of lodestone myr?

KJS3: I hunt!
But I can use a pointer now and then :)

SCHOLAR:
When I design decks I usually do massive testing to find the right numbers, which means I usually remember what everyone else use as well as what I prefer to use, so I can follow you in being independant about cardpicks.
I would like to point out that most registered top 8 wins with modern mill uses shelldock isle, so the card must have something going for it :D Beyond that fact I personally think the favored number of 3 shelldock is way to much, and as stated I'm starting to use only one. My statistics for it is that it's only working a little above 50% of the time, but when it works it usually delivers the kill. It can be used in different ways as well.

It's not always that people notice what shelldock isle can be used for:
When I play one of these I always study the 4 cards carefully, evaluating if it's better to get a fetchland in play to support some crabs, or if I can cast entering from breaking/entering to steal something valuable from a grave, or if I can count on using mind funeral with enough lands gone from the opponent library to be lethal.