Well, I've only played standard 2-3 times and probably 10+ years ago, so if I were to build a mill deck for standard on the whim, I would first see what millcards there were available. Working from there I would either go BUG with graveyard boosted critters or UB with phenax. The phenax concept seems to be the best pick, and I would base it heavily on flying creatures and support it with some other mill. For mill I would pick paranoid delusions, psychic spiral and phenax, lord of deception. (12 heavy milling cards) There would be two win-cons, either beatdown with flying creatures, with phenax and hover barrier as blockers, or by milling. There would have to be some removal, of which grisly spectacle might be good, but a faster pick in removal is also needed. In general, study what mill cards are available, what supportcards you have available (No matter how strange. Stufflike satyr wayfinder would be on my consider list for a bug-mill in standard), then study the meta, and build some proxy testdecks and work work work!
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Well, I've thought a bit about stuff like this, and have an idea that it should be possible to merge the three decktypes phenax defender, bloom titan and birthing pod! I'm working a bit on other phenax designs.
If you go through my older decks you will find lots of data on milling in legacy and modern. The oldest post are most detailed, and if you write down some of it you might find several millcards that are good and not really played by others, so they will be cheap!
Within my experience with mill (5 years in modern and legacy with mill) Use a maximum of 2 lands that are forced to come tapped into play
Then we will hi-jack the concept :D I'm working on a modern-based phenax/defender theme from this moment. So far I consider these: tree of redemption 0/13 may get you life. stalwart shieldbearers 0/3 boosts other defenders. wolly razorback 7/7 it's agood blocker. doorkeeper 0/4 backup mill. drift of phantasms 0/5 may fetch a 3cc fog bank 0/2 cheap and efficient. ludevic's test subject 0/3 (13/13) alternate win. wall of blood 0/2 pumpable. perimeter captain 0/4 lifegain theme, may support wall of blood theme. pride guardian 0/3 lifegain wall of shards 1/8 powerfull with phenax, but forces you to win with mill alone. wakestone gargoyle 3/4 animates the defenders. especially blood wall. All of this might be able to be used somehow with doran, the siege tower.
It doesn't say standard in the headline, doesn't say standard in the tags, and certainly newer mentiones standar in either deck description or how to play, so it could be modern to anyone who wants it unless zanpenki says otherwise somewhere :D
Telemin performance should be moved to the sideboard. Oona costs 6, so it should go too. the two mind sculpt belongs to a faster type of mill so out with them too, as you want to keep stuff like mirko and aberration. And keening stone takes two turns to use so take it out too.
No problem. If you have the time you can go through my milldecks and scout out what I've played with and why. The oldest decks are the most detailed. The best one though is the fast reliable modern mill.
Will anyone go green with the 0/13 tree that gives life for 3G
If anyone's thinking of trying with white, there's the flashback marshaling cry!
Hi there. I've had more than 5 years experience with mill in both modern and legacy, and have also had a background in making computersimulations that created mana-curves. The perfect number of lands to play when you need to cast 4 cards with a manacost of 5 is 25 lands. 20 lands is only used in a deck with a maximum of 12 cards costing 2 and the rest costing 1 mana.
Well, I've seens seriously many mill-decks, and this is the only creaturefilled mill I've ever wanted to play with just by looking at it. It looks very very tough. If you haven't played it, you should aim forward to do just that, as I think it can be competitive! If it doesn't work in the form it had when I first saw it, then I have so many alternate directions you can try instead :D I can see several ways to build this deck differently! But you should play it before you change anything else, then report on how it went! Proxy if you have to, and force your friends to proxy good modern decks too. Play it in a serious setup...
If it's just the idea that counts add 4 of the tabernacle at pendrel vale to remove opponent creatures.
No, no, mass removal of creatures. Pernicious deed, engineered explosives, massacre, wrath of god. That sort of removal!!! :D
With 16 2cc's the number of land is probably okay. You really want 4 mana at turn four so you can play: turn 1 1cc turn 2 2cc turn 3 1cc and 2cc turn 4 2cc and 2cc
13 comment's and noone's mentioned mass removal???
Bitterblossom was overpowered through it's low cost when it first hit the game. Then it was banned in modern, and recently was unbanned again, so the card has probably gained some more $ value...
I've done some research on jace's phantasm, and only 1 deck in modern and 2 decks in legacy have won with it. The one from modern is linked within my posts about naniha's deck, and the legacy deck is linked from here: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=3020&d=219098 It focusses on delver, the phantasm and snappy, with only archive trap to drive the phantasm. Since both the legacy deck and the moderndeck plays less critters than you, you might be able to cut out 2 cosi's trickster from the deck, even though they started the whole thing :D
I think manamaze + counterbalance might be a better counter-solution, + if sensei's divining top is in there there will be more "search".
I usually play creatureless mill, but your creature mix seems interresting. Especially the trickster-part as path, and the extractors force a shuffle out of the opponent and all 12 fits mill. Does the trickster grow fast enough to resist lightning bolts? Do you wait with the surgicals to boost it if someone tries to burn it? How about remand? Do you think it could replace azorious charm? (remand + surgical/extirpate is a very nifty move) How does your deck fare in general on the tournament scene? (What are your best/worst matchups) This is one of the best creaturesupported milldecks I have seen so far. Soo much synnergy. I can recommend that you try to toy a bit with noxious revival in your deck. Noxious revival can first of all let you use the biggest millspell in your grave, or let you reuse some removal or whatever. Noxious revival also fights combo by letting you put a useless card on the top of their library at a critical point of their comboing, and it fights stuff like reanimator by doing just the same thing. If you design your sideboard and have noxious revival in your mainboard and deign it from there, you can minimize your sideboard in whole new ways. There are plenty of decktypes that suffers when noxious revival is involved. Tron wont be happy when you ghostquarter an urza-land and then noxious revival the ghostquarter back on top of your library :D Try it out :D
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