Grindclock

Artifact

Tap: Put a charge counter on Grindclock.

Tap: Target player puts the top X cards from his or her library into his or her graveyard, where X is the number of charge counters on Grindclock.

Combos

• Grindclock + Vorel of the Hull Clade

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

lagotripha on Endeavor (M)

1 year ago

This is a neat idea - you can get some redundant copies of nine lives that incidentally gain 10 life with Phyrexian Unlife. Hex Parasite is neat as a way to reset counters too, in a pinch.

Speaking personally on wincons, I like Decimator Web and Grindclock, but honestly stone fangs/tranquil light will help keep you in the game a lot better - getting multiple 1 and 2 mana shrines into play buys a lot of time to tutor up the combo.

With the shrines, more colours makes it run smoother; it can be achieved on a budget with a combination of cards like Abundant Growth and treasures, which also lets you threaten to cast mechanised production, even if it stays a sideboard plan.

Honden of Infinite Rage offer a 'wait and eventually win' setup in red, which would also open up Lightning Helix for aggro matchups, and pairs neatly with stone fangs. Shattered heights turns lands into removal, while calm waters finds answers and combo pieces.

Best of luck with the brew!

lagotripha on Counter Everything?

1 year ago

Jwari Disruption  ^Flip is great as it sits in land slots - sandbar will do fine in its place so long as your spell count is high enough. Even a one of in your list massively improves tempo if your opponent plays around it.

Mana leak has some sweet alternatives - Lose Focus in particular lets you scale up as the game draws on, and is hard to protect against due to copies.

Thassa's Intervention is both cheaper than memory deluge and acts as a counterspell.

I'd give a little thought to old Grindclock style decks, where you just play protect the artifact until you can win - or play something like Zur's Weirding where you reach a point where you just lock out the game and win on life. As is, you'll need to use recursion on mill spells which isn't being used holding up counterspells.

The main thing I'd consider going outside budget for is Surgical Extraction - hitting the shuffle eldrazi is essential to mill decks, while being able to remove a deck's main threats or answers when you see them in the graveyard is incredible. On that note, Gut shot/Void mirror is a nonbo- you'll want one of them in the sideboard to swap into. Tormod's Crypt or similar will do on a budget, but you do need to have an answer for milling a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger or similar somewhere in the 75.

Baral's draw/discard is mostly land filtering here, and the cost reduction isn't as crazy as it is when ramping - you could safely swap it for more draw power.

Broken Ambitions is traditional for counter/mill.

I'd want a wrath effect or comparable card in the side or main - as is you have 4x suspend, 4x gut shot for creature matchups, which doesn't feel like enough what with the time counter thing meaning you need another card afterwards - its a great synergy with void mirror, but I'd want a bit more.

More important than any of this advice is this - target your meta. Put sideboard cards maindeck to win your FNM - the control decks that make it through tournaments aren't the ones that have the best 'generic answers' (though they feature them), but ones that target metagame weaknesses - the maindeck Steel Sabotage or Narset's Reversal or for example. The void mirror setup is an incredible start for that - build out from there.

Niko9 on Advice For Olivia CMDR

2 years ago

I think RiotRunner789 is correct in saying that Olivia is probably not cEDH, but she can probably be very good.

Self mill seems like it would work well here. Necropotence can not only give you amazing draw and selection, but also allow you to discard good stuff to hand size that Olivia will come in and reanimate.

I play Bruna, the Fading Light  ^Meld which is similar, but in black and red you can get better mill. There are artifact mill that might be useful here though. Mesmeric Orb is great but will draw almost instant removal. Things like Shriekhorn Grindclock Codex Shredder Altar of Dementia Grindstoneare good and especially so if you can recur artifacts or use them extra times with something like Unwinding Clock. The clock also plays really nice with artifact lands. Oh, and always remember that milling your opponents can kill top deck tutors. Keeping your mill artifacts open until it's coming back to your turn can kill a lot of these effects.

The Underworld Cookbook can also be really nice to get biggies in the graveyard if you draw them, and also bring back creatures late game. Trading Post is just lovely, and 4cmc seems like a lot, but it always does something great for you.

Artifact strategy with Inventors' Fair can be great here. Also, black reanimation like Unearth are always going to work wonders. In my experience, it's not too useful to focus on expensive reanimation because that's what your commander wants to do, but smaller reanimation for value can be good.

The one thing to remember if you do any mill strategy is that you are going to mill your bombs away. It's often better to have ways to get things back than it is to play things that are great but you have no way to get back.

I don't have a ton of experience with B/R in edh, so take it all with a grain of salt for sure. I just wonder if Olivia would be better for cEDH in the 99. Having access to more colors is always a plus, and I'd think that Olivia would be very nice in something like Kess, Dissident Mage. Kess can recur reanimation spells that can bring out a nice hasty Olivia who can swing in and bring back another creature. Plus you get access to blue and all the sweet blue instants.

One big issue with Olivia in competitive groups is that your bomb is always there in the command zone. Most blue decks will try to save a counter spell just for her if they can. You could play discard and hand disruption to target blue players to help with this.

Hope it helps :) Olivia is looking cooler than ever, and it's such a great card. I just don't know if she can keep up with the speed of TandT, Malcolm, food chain, or really fast ad naus decks in cEDH.

StoryArcher on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

2 years ago

Morning, all :)

I've been playing around with Dimir mill in the Modern format, buoyed in part by the excellent Drown in the Loch. At the moment I'm looking at two approaches; the first is a sort of 'suicide mill' where the focus is less on interaction and more on running them out at all costs. At the moment I just can't seem to get it fast enough, so it's the weaker option.

The second, and the one I'm asking for help with, is a more meta-mill sort of deck, leaning on tempo and control while gradually milling. This deck will have a lot more interaction, including a number of creatures and would be as likely to win through damage as forcing the last draw.

For this deck concept I can't get it out of my head that Dauthi Voidwalker doesn't present a load of interesting opportunities, with cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable and Maddening Cacophony dumping tons of cards into what would be the graveyard. The Voidwalker is actually massively problematic in its synergy (or lack thereof) with many traditional mill cards as it keeps those cards from going into the graveyard and therefor often leaving options like Jace's Phantasm and Visions of Beyond depowered. Still, I can't help but think it has some potential, and there are plenty of match-ups where exiling cards is preferred to sending them into the graveyard.

Has anyone tried to used the Voidwalker in this way? Is it a fool's errand to even try in a competitive deck? Are there any good examples of a more controller-y Dimir mill deck that anyone would like to offer? I'd really like to try to make this competitive and most of my past experience with milling is mono-red land destruction that denies land draws via Grindclock or Codex Shredder + Lantern of Insight.

I did play an earlier version of this deck once in a local tournament and have one of my favorite 'Magic moments' ever - watching my opponent sac a fetch land on the opening play and in response popping an Archive Trap and then a Surgical Extraction, absolutely wrecking his combo deck and watching him scoop before I had even gotten a chance to play my turn. Ever since then I've wanted to make a serious go at this.

Thanks in advance.

king-saproling on G/W mill

2 years ago

Cauldron of Souls makes your creatures virtually immortal and has fun synergy with Altar of Dementia.

These might interest you as well: Vigor, Pariah, Grindclock, Evolution Sage, Grateful Apparition, Urban Daggertooth

Caerwyn on

2 years ago

Dimir Aqueduct is a bad card and does not belong in any decks. Even on a budget there are vastly better two-colored lands. Same goes with Fetid Pools and every other enters-tapped land. Realistically, you want your mana base to mostly be fetch lands to trigger your crabs.

Which, on that note, you should be running a full contingent of 8 crabs.

Add 4x Archive Trap to punish opponent fetches and 2-3x Field of Ruin to force players to search their library so you can fire off Traps.

Mind Grind is a waste of mana. You are better off using those two slots for another Glimpse the Unthinkable and Fractured Sanity .

Grindclock is another bad card--it takes way too long. Think of Mill like a burn deck where you want to "burn" your opponent's life total as quicky as possible.

You will want something that can bounce permanents in your sideboard--mill is in a lot of trouble if a Leyline of Sanctity effect hits the field. Another option is running more fetches, throwing a few Overgrown Tomb s into the mix, and running a couple copies of Assassin's Trophy to take out those pesky cards that you cannot otherwise deal with.

Ensnaring Bridge is another decent sideboard option.

Ize19 on Yes, This Deck is For Real

3 years ago

Don't know if you're interested, but a good addition might be Mimic Vat , to combo with your Coretapper . Creating a hasty Coretapper every turn for 3 mana means you can activate your Golem Foundry , Lux Cannon , Titan Forge , or Magistrate's Scepter every turn, or you can super charge/accelerate your Astral Cornucopia , Empowered Autogenerator , Everflowing Chalice , Grindclock , or Darksteel Reactor . Again, just a suggestion, +1 for the fun deck!

LordCube on Muldrotha - Mill your Heart Out

3 years ago

I agree with bushido_man96 that Molderhulk is too expensive for what you get, though a 6/6 for 2 isn't terrible late game. If you just need more land then I would suggest Farhaven Elf and Viridian Emissary. If you need the creature then Ghoultree is simply a stronger alternative. As for mill cards I can't recommend Grindclock and Stitcher's Supplier enough. The value you get for such low mana is too good to pass up. I would say the same for Kaya's Ghostform. If you are willing to spend a bit more money then take a look at Greater Good, Doom Whisperer, and Fraying Sanity.