wickeddarkman

SOULOFMIRRODIN:

Splashing red for the "entering" part?

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
Yeah, design 10 needs more mill, but I had geared the lands toward more black in order to use darkblast/damnation a little more, so I guessed that I might needed the U/B ability of memory sluice to be able to cast turn 1 mill more reliably. That design got runned over.
Conclusion is that the leyline is not good in legacy...

Since I'm not sure I understood the idea fully, I added some suggestions. Unless it's just a prototype to be feed ideas, you will need to explain how to play it :) I've written two paths to follow!

2hp10:
Just played a game with someone regular in modern, and I asked him if he would have sideboarded artifact hatred against me if we had used sideboard, and he answered yes, so I told him about my plan, and he was actually surprised, since his main hate-card is mesmeric orb!

SVAMPESOVS: (Are you Danish? I am! Your "name" is Danish in nature)

If you take mesmeric orb to the extremes, say you play a land each turn, you have 4 mesmeric orbs that you play as fast as possible AND you tap out every single turn, that will kill you at exactly your turn 7. If you can't win before turn 7 you are usually dead anyways.

In more than 50 games I think I have had to slow down perhaps 2 times, so mesmeric orb isn't that much of a threat to your own deck, and your mill will punish your opponent even faster. Also, mesmeric orb works wonders with dream twist, which is part of my primary deck. If you prefer having many creatures you may consider to play stuff like bloodghast with the orb! Use mesmeric orb to get flashback cards online, like darkblast or increasing confusion.

Sorry about mindgrind, I meant sanity grind!

It's a rarity to see twincast in mill!
What happens when they release "breaking" (UB mill 8) ? Will you cut down on twincast to put these in, or would you pick something else?

I've always had an eye on brainstorm/ponder to use with mill as it runs out of steam fast. How well does ponder perform in your designs?

Karakas/singularity in mainboard is part of my weaponry against sneakshow, as well as parts of my general sideboard (3 flusterstorm, 3 damnation, 3 extirpate, 3 darkblast, 3 leyline of the void)

You can click on our names to see what decks we have. My designs are legacy and modern playable but fokus on less creatures.

Welcome to the wonderfull era of mill!
Mill is being played in standard, and by some individuals also in modern and legacy.

A small select group of millers are watching out for new blood and mill-concepts in mtgvault, and you have the dubious honor of being stalked by me, wickeddarkman.

I'll suggest that you get rid of curse of the bloody tome and either replace it with mind sculpt (1U mills 7) or mesmeric orb (Mills between 5-6 or 11-14 depending on opponents decktype).

Another alternative would be mind grind, but then you would have to rid yourself of the shriekhorns (Use vision charms) and you must chose mind sculpt above mesmeric orb.

For your sideboard consideration try out surgical extraction for use against reanimate or emrakul.

I think that should cover the basics.

I have been building a lot of different millingdesigns for legacy and modern, so you might consider taking a look at my decks to see how I troubleshoot!

Welcome to the grinding station!

If they have a lot of creatures in play, and then draw the singularity, then it's a matter of what happens next. If they continue winning then they do nothing with it, and if their opponent turns the table they can play the leyline.

I've thought it over some more, and now have two destinct reasons for when singularity is good in a creaturedeck.

1: You play it from your opening hand if you have the creatures with most power/toughness.

2: You play it from your openinghand if you have MORE creatures than your opponent. (Example, your opponent plays with 4 tarmogoyf, 4 delver of secrets and nimble mongoose, you play vial-goblins.)

Whenever these two situations fail, you have two options.

1: Use the leyline as sweep.
2: Break a played leyline with another.

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
"Hunted" creatures are nice with torpor orb, and in some cases the leyline too.
Torpor orb also stops a few decks in modern so having both these might be an idea.

Leyline of singularity constantly surpises me, since we've been talking so much about it.
Remember the singularity is better than void against dredge? Turns out it had another improvement over void! You can use surgical extraction alongside it. Which was not possible with the void. I'm curently trying to restructure my whole conceptuality on the uses of singularity versus the void. Karakas/singularity has been my first ever successfull response to sneakshow, and I'm trying to bring reanimate in under the same scope (Originally I use 4 void and 1 grafdigger's cage) by using surgical and extirpate to a higher degree.

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
I'll take that as a challenge ;D So let's find a creatureheavy deck with blue in it, that you think is not good to play the leyline in!
Hell, I'll even put it in a goblindeck if I get to design it :) Then I'll play it for a while and comment on how the leyline performs.

After all there's a reason why I claim it stalls beatdown a little, which is that, the more creatures there are in a deck, the more you can actually play without being affected by the leyline. So a deck with say 16 lands, 4 leylines and 10X4 cheap goblincards will have an easier time to play goblins than a deck with 4 tarmogoyf 4 delver of secrets and 4 nimble mongoose would have it.

Leyline punishes the decks with the least creatures in it the most. So, it's natural to me that a deck with many creatures will have use of the leyline :)

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
Working on it :)

Good question, probably something quite weird, since I'm used to place certain restrictions on my decks, mainly in the mana-department. I once had a simulation running to find the perfect manacurves (Turned out, stuff is less curvey than the concept promotes it to be) It worked through evolution and used basic lands and creatures costing 1-4 mana with the same power as their cost. It produced manasolutions for me that I have used for over 3 years. Almost all of my builds follow these.
But I'm a man with so many projects that I simply have to stand down on this challenge. I got legacy and modern to beat with mill, which is project enough for me. And on the sideline I'm working on finding the perfect mutationrate for decktypes :)

2hp10:

Nah! I just need to keep them on their toes all the time, and stay sharp myself.
One thing that has changed over the time is the usefullness of shriekhorn.
After playing mill for so long, the harder players have realised that even a card such as shriekhorn is a threat to them (Especially people I have milled down to 1-6 cards will think that), so a trend among players have spread that if I control an artifact it's better just to kill it as fast as possible, even if it has just a single counter left on it, they know mesmeric orb is a better target, but the horn is also dangerous in it's own way. So the standard reaction in here is to sideboard for some artisfact destruction just to cope with these two cards. Now since the horn in such conditions is less efficient, milling 2-4 cards instead of 6, suddenly cards like memory sluice carry more weight. The same thing goes for mesmeric orb. They all know I play with it, and they all side against it because they know how good it is. Mind sculpt mills 7 which is sometimes less than the orb can mill, and sometimes more, and I've set that aside for a while cause the orb is better in the long run.

However it would be fun to lose the artisfacts, and put these other less-milling but more stable cards back in the deck and see how long time it takes for people to figure out that I no longer play them, and in the long run, this can be made into a cyclical ritual, so I stay unpredictable, and they suffer everytime they are unprepaired for the switch...

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
We've been doing this all over the place, and I wont copypaste the usual comment in this post, so I'll let you win the discussion here :)
Now that I've broken the pattern I'd like to adress another milling strategy.

Island sanctuary, worship, mesmeric orb, ghoulcaller's bell, lantern of insight, darkblast, dreamtwist and the two other flashback millingcards in innistrad cycle. How do you think that would work out ?

In the case that your opponent seems to play the bigger creatures you will propably lose wether the leyline is part of the deck or not, but you may opt to keep it in hand as a sweep and then pray that your opponent plays doubless!

Just think of the leyline as a card that can be played in several ways. You will almost always be able to adjust your strategies with it!

And if everything seems wrong about it, sideboard it or even loose it :)

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
I love "building around" the problems I face in magic. Also, the larger a discussion becomes, the more other cards will tend to pop up in conversation, which is a great way to find the next step of innovation. I will try to face the challenge of building a creaturebased mill with 4 of each creature and leyline as the main concept, and then we can talk about the results in detail. It won't be as beatdown as other decks might be, but it will illustrate a point of using the leyline among 4 of each.

CHEWRIDA:
Funny thing is I usually play aggro too, but then I got bit by a mad miller!
The rest is sort of history!

CHEWRIDA:
Well, I've argued for putting the leyline between critters so much that I will have to prove my arguments through building such a deck!
I will go to the drawingboard for a while and do just that. If it fails more than usual I'll concede a win to SOULOFMIRRODIN on this one :)

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
Two things can happen with glimpse the unthinkable.
1: The price will escalate now that they've made a second version of it!
2: The price will fall because they made a second version of it!

I think it will be nr 1 that wins out, so get 8 copies of the new one while it's cheap, then trade the 4 extra's for the original when it's been priced higher after a while :)

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
Well if you aren't stalking me, then you are just as stubborn and fireheaded as I am.
I am stalking millingdecks too, and like to spread any innovations I can think of.
Debate on any cards can only be good for all of us, and sometimes you or I will lose the argument, but I hope no harm is done at that.

If we din't have our differences, neither of us would have put much thought into leyline combined with cryptoplasm, phyrexian metamorph or kor skyfisher! And at least two other people have decided to base a deck around the leyline instead of the mill, which would never have happened either if it wasn't for you and me, warring over the place.

I expect you to do the same whenever I get other ideas, and in the case that I get a truly stupid idea, I hope you will pawn me sufficiently enough so that I withdraw that idea.

2hp10:
I can't be discouraged :)

Well perhaps a little, this week I played 2 modern tournaments and got absolutely no victories...
Before that, it's always been soo close. Especially at the week before this, and I've made no changes in design.

I can only put it down to the fact that the players know that I will bring along mill, and have compensated for it. It's such a small group I play within, so it's very likely that's what's happening. I'll just have to upscale the battle once more :)

In legacy it's doubtfull if I keep the leyline, but I will have to try it out some more there!

SOULOFMIRRODIN:
You wrote somewhere else that I should let people decide for themselves if the card is bad or not, and then you go elsewhere and say "Don't use it". You also say that my logic is flawed, but in your examples you use specific situations, while it is clear that leyline of singularity can be played in many ways, fitting the individual needs of playstyle, for example you write that if you had two crabs and a leyline you would want to play both instead of putting down the leyline. Well do so! Then you write that you don't want to sweep with it later because you might lose the crabs, and I sort of think that if you can play the leyline as sweep, then you would have 4 lands, which means that 2 crabs will have milled 18 cards together. In such a case keep the leyline in hand and continue. It's more likely that the crabs have been killed which means you can play the leyline as a sweeper, in any case, the leyline can be played intelligently at all times, weighing when to use it or not to use it. Don't just think of it as an anoyance. Be creative.