Trust me on the chancellor, it's worth the drawbacks if you want to lock down other decks fast. Try out three, put paperslips in their sleeves, and note everytime they mill, and every time they are drawn at a bad time. You will soon find that they help more than they hinder :D You may also consider trying them out with shelldock isle which can play them.I also try to think both longterm and "right now" choices, which is why I play such stuff as chancellors and shriekhorns. I spend months trying to finetune my mill :D
Permalink
If you really want to go for their land you will need more than just 4 cards to support surgical extraction.I use 4 tome scour, 4 shriekhorn, 3 memory sluice and 3 chancellors of the spires to fully exploit surgical extraction.You could also be using memory sluice, shriekhorn and ghost quarters as a "land hate"-strategy. I've seen at least one deck trying this approach:http://www.mtgvault.com/kjsj3/decks/millin-krillin-v2/
THE "SHRIEKHORN IS BETTER THAN TOME SCOUR" CAMPAIGN:First of all, it's colorless, so if you are stranded with a swamp at turn 1, you can get going with shriekhorn already that turn.I've been playing with both tomescour and shriekhorn in my modernmill, and for more than 200 games I have been registering how much shriekhorn mills on an average. The basis is that I play 4 and play them within a priority to keep track of what happens to lategame shriekhorns, so the first numeric results are always for the most played shriekhorn, while the last is for the least played shriekhorn (which sometimes doesn't get played)I've tested against the fastest decks on the field (Well elves are not that fast, but I tested it anyways)SHRIEKHORN VS MERFOLK:5.571, 5.333, 5.142, 5.037At no point it drops below 5, so it is statistically better than tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS AFFINITY:5.538, 5.2, 4.888, 4.5Half of the shriekhorns drop below 5 so two could be replaced with tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS INFECT:5.111, 5, 5, 4.5They still stay above 4 so no exchanges.SHRIEKHORN VS ELVES:5.5, 5.5, 5, 4.888One drops below 5 and could be replaced.BUT WHAT ABOUT DECKS WITH ARTIFACT HATRED ???First of all, only a few nuts persons would target a shriekhorn to destroy it, and in general if they really really want to target your horn, then let them and play mesmeric orb or other superior artifact mill.SHRIEKHORN HAS OTHER USES:In legacy I've often used shriekhorn to disrupt cards set for counterbalance, but there must be modern decks where instantly disrupting the top of a library counts for something. (tutor-stopping?)Also, a lot of players favor echoing truth as a sideboard card in modern, and by echoing shriekhorn you gain a fresh mill-clock.
THE "SHRIEKHORN IS BETTER THAN TOME SCOUR" CAMPAIGN:First of all, it's colorless, so if you are stranded with a swamp at turn 1, you can get going with shriekhorn already that turn.I've been playing with both tomescour and shriekhorn in my modernmill, and for more than 200 games I have been registering how much shriekhorn mills on an average. The basis is that I play 4 and play them within a priority to keep track of what happens to lategame shriekhorns, so the first numeric results are always for the most played shriekhorn, while the last is for the least played shriekhorn (which sometimes doesn't get played)I've tested against the fastest decks on the field (Well elves are not that fast, but I tested it anyways)SHRIEKHORN VS MERFOLK:5.571, 5.333, 5.142, 5.037At no point it drops below 5, so it is statistically better than tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS AFFINITY:5.538, 5.2, 4.888, 4.5Half of the shriekhorns drop below 5 so two could be replaced with tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS INFECT:5.111, 5, 5, 4.5They still stay above 4 so no exchanges.SHRIEKHORN VS ELVES:5.5, 5.5, 5, 4.888One drops below 5 and could be replaced.BUT WHAT ABOUT DECKS WITH ARTIFACT HATRED ???First of all, only a few nuts persons would target a shriekhorn to destroy it, and in general if they really really want to target your horn, then let them and play mesmeric orb or other superior artifact mill.SHRIEKHORN HAS OTHER USES:In legacy I've often used shriekhorn to disrupt cards set for counterbalance, but there must be modern decks where instantly disrupting the top of a library counts for something.Also, a lot of players favor echoing truth as a sideboard card in modern, and by echoing shriekhorn you gain a fresh mill-clock.
I'll give you the advanced "shriekhorn is above tome scour" campaign!First of, all my research (more than 200 games) with my own milldeck have given me the statistics of how much shriekhorn actually mills, and it is superior to tomescour in many ways, (Colorless, can disrupt "on the top"-tutors, mills more)In your deck it will perhaps enable you to play with one more ghost quarter if you remove another land (maybe even two)I also think you should try to go "full scale" with ensnaring bridge. Run 4 ensaring bridge, 4surgical extractions and 4 extirpate which will take care of combo, and which will be able to remove any artifact hatred that you encounter in aggro.To speed up emptying your hand you may as well consider playing 4 street wraith or 4 faerie macabre or even 4 simian spirit guide.
YAY!You play shriekhorn, so consider echoing truth in your sideboard :D
THE "SHRIEKHORN IS BETTER THAN TOME SCOUR" CAMPAIGN:I've been playing with both tomescour and shriekhorn in my modernmill, and for more than 200 games I have been registering how much shriekhorn mills on an average. The basis is that I play 4 and play them within a priority to keep track of what happens to lategame shriekhorns, so the first numeric results are always for the most played shriekhorn, while the last is for the least played shriekhorn (which sometimes doesn't get played)I've tested against the fastest decks on the field (Well elves are not that fast, but I tested it anyways)SHRIEKHORN VS MERFOLK:5.571, 5.333, 5.142, 5.037At no point it drops below 5, so it is statistically better than tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS AFFINITY:5.538, 5.2, 4.888, 4.5Half of the shriekhorns drop below 5 so two could be replaced with tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS INFECT:5.111, 5, 5, 4.5They still stay above 4 so no exchanges.SHRIEKHORN VS ELVES:5.5, 5.5, 5, 4.888One drops below 5 and could be replaced.BUT WHAT ABOUT DECKS WITH ARTIFACT HATRED ???First of all, only a few nuts persons would target a shriekhorn to destroy it, and in general if they really really want to target your horn, then let them and play mesmeric orb or other superior artifact mill.SHRIEKHORN HAS OTHER USES:In legacy I've often used shriekhorn to disrupt cards set for counterbalance, but there must be modern decks where instantly disrupting the top of a library counts for something.Also, a lot of players favor echoing truth as a sideboard card in modern, and by echoing shriekhorn you gain a fresh mill-clock.
You have listed both dream twist, memory sluice, tome scour and vision charm, BUT HAVE FORGOTTEN SHRIEKHORN!!!THE "SHRIEKHORN IS BETTER THAN TOME SCOUR" CAMPAIGN:I've been playing with both tomescour and shriekhorn in my modernmill, and for more than 200 games I have been registering how much shriekhorn mills on an average. The basis is that I play 4 and play them within a priority to keep track of what happens to lategame shriekhorns, so the first numeric results are always for the most played shriekhorn, while the last is for the least played shriekhorn (which sometimes doesn't get played)I've tested against the fastest decks on the field (Well elves are not that fast, but I tested it anyways)SHRIEKHORN VS MERFOLK:5.571, 5.333, 5.142, 5.037At no point it drops below 5, so it is statistically better than tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS AFFINITY:5.538, 5.2, 4.888, 4.5Half of the shriekhorns drop below 5 so two could be replaced with tomescour.SHRIEKHORN VS INFECT:5.111, 5, 5, 4.5They still stay above 4 so no exchanges.SHRIEKHORN VS ELVES:5.5, 5.5, 5, 4.888One drops below 5 and could be replaced.BUT WHAT ABOUT DECKS WITH ARTIFACT HATRED ???First of all, only a few nuts persons would target a shriekhorn to destroy it, and in general if they really really want to target your horn, then let them and play mesmeric orb or other superior artifact mill.SHRIEKHORN HAS OTHER USES:In legacy I've often used shriekhorn to disrupt cards set for counterbalance, but there must be modern decks where instantly disrupting the top of a library counts for something.Also, a lot of players favor echoing truth as a sideboard card in modern, and by echoing shriekhorn you gain a fresh mill-clock.
Yup. It was in lyngby. My "handle" wickeddarkman is wellknown in kbh which is why some call me wicked.The time fits close to a point where I stopped playing at lyngby because a friend of mine needed to test against legacy. From there we went to test against modern, so I now have an array of testdecks to attack my mill with.At that time my best milldeck was at it's peak. (It had no hedrons and no archive traps in main)It's been a long travel before I started up on serious tests against my mill, but at a time I took it to a fanatic and went top 4 with it. Then I went to lyngby and got beaten because everyone knew how to play against it, so I decided to refine it in ways that would make it work even if an opponent knows the entire decklist by heart.Here's a link to what it looks like at the moment:http://www.mtgvault.com/wickeddarkman/decks/the-story-so-far/
Yup. It was in lyngby. My "handle" wickeddarkman is wellknown in kbh which is why some call me wicked.The time fits close to a point where I stopped playing at lyngby because a friend of mine needed to test against legacy. From there we went to test against modern, so I now have an array of testdecks to attack my mill with.At that time my best milldeck was at it's peak. (It had no hedrons and no archive traps in main)It's been a long travel before I started up on serious tests against my mill, but at a time I took it to a fanatic and went top 4 with it. Then I went to lyngby and got beaten because everyone knew how to play against it, so I decided to refine it in ways that would make it work even if an opponent knows the entire decklist by heart.Here's a link to what it looks like at the moment:
I only play in denmark, so if you played there odds are good enough for us to have met :DThe only person I remember recently playing mbc-mill was about a year or more ago, with 4 extirpate, 4 surgical extraction, 4 sadistic sacrament and a death's shadow combo within the deck.
SHHH! Our tests are sort of secret, so don't mention them!I can offer a lot of advice, but need to know the intended format and how serious juicy wants to play mill!If it's truly casual, then I can recommend that the counterspells are exchanged with flusterstorm, and if you want to work without surgical extraction which is black, then extract is your only way to get rid of troublesome cards.And as always, the best milling artisfact card is mesmeric orb. Mesmeric orb will work very well with dream twist and increasing confusion.I currently use 3 chancellor of the spires, 4 mind sculpt, 4 tome scour, 2 memory sluice, 1 mesmeric orb, 2 archive trap, 4 shriekhorn and 3 hedron crab (+1 shelldock isle) + a lot of other millcards that are black. My main strategy is to mill as much as possible, using the cards in magic that mills most of all, and the numbers are pretty specialized towards not being obstructive at any part of the game. 23 millcards is an acceptable amount for a deck with stuff other than mill, so try these above cards as a starting core for your deck, then experiment as much as possible.
SHHH! Our tests are secret!I can offer a lot of advice, but need to know the intended format and how serious juicy wants to play mill!If it's truly casual, then I can recommend that the counterspells are exchanged with flusterstorm, and if you want to work without surgical extraction which is black, then extract is your only way to get rid of troublesome cards.
I also saw the tutelage and thought "wotc want's grinding painter to live?"It's a lot cheaper than helm of obediance and has no activation so is a lot less vulnerable to needle/revoker.It will take some work with this to fit in modern, and should stay as close to the legacydesigns as possible to work.
3,601-3,620 of 4,558 items