Phenax Mill

Commander / EDH Mill Reanimator Tap/Untap UB (Dimir)

NotMarkMoses

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Agadeem, the Undercrypt  ^Flip
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Demolition Field
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Hagra Broodpit  ^Flip
• 2x Island
• 1x Jwari Ruins  ^Flip
• 1x Malakir Mire  ^Flip
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sea Gate, Reborn  ^Flip
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave

Battle (1)

• 1x Invasion of Amonket

Creature (30)

• 1x Aboleth Spawn
• 1x Aphetto Alchemist
• 1x Bruvac the Grandiloquent
• 1x Captain N'ghathrod
• 1x Charix, the Raging Isle
• 1x Concealing Curtains  ^Flip
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Cruel Somnophage
• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Gyruda, Doom of Depths
• 1x Halo Forager
• 1x Hunted Horror
• 1x Ioreth of the Healing House
• 1x Kitesail Larcenist
• 1x Ledger Shredder
• 1x Ruin Crab
• 1x Shield Sphere
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x The Ancient One
• 1x The Haunt of Hightower
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Troll of Khazad-dum
• 1x Unctus, Grand Metatect
• 1x Zellix, Sanity Flayer

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Breach the Multiverse
• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Lorien Revealed
• 1x Maddening Cacophony
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Commander (1)

Instant (10)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x See Double
• 1x Soul Shatter

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Liquimetal Torque
• 1x Midnight Clock
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study

---

This deck aims to mill opponents using Phenax’s ability, and to take advantage of the milled cards with recursion effects.

Since Phenax allows high-toughness creatures to mill efficiently, this deck runs a number of creatures with good toughness-to-CMC ratios - these include Shield Sphere, Wall of Frost, and Charix, the Raging Isle. Creatures like Consuming Aberration, The Haunt of Hightower, and Tree of Perdition are slower early on but quickly become capable of milling huge numbers of cards; Tree of Perdition also has the nice ability to reduce an opponent's life to 13 as it becomes big. Eater of the Dead is a useful card that can repeatedly mill, untapping itself by exiling creatures from graveyards. Another general benefit of running creatures with low power and high toughness is that you are often protected from opponents' attackers, since they are likely to prefer hitting someone who either cannot block or will have to chump. The milling power of the deck is not limited to creatures, though: we also run Maddening Cacophony, Court of Cunning, and Invasion of Amonkhet  . For a mill combo win, the usual Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank or Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank are both pretty good, as is Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Maddening Cacophony , assuming your opponents have no shuffle titans, etc.

Since cards are hopefully being piled into opponents' graveyards throughout the game, it would be good to make use of them. This deck runs a number of creature reanimation effects including Reanimate, Animate Dead, Captain N'ghathrod, and Breach the Multiverse; as well as effects that recur non-creature spells, such as Halo Forager. More forceful exile-and-copy recursion, e.g. Dauthi Voidwalker or The Scarab God can be also be very useful - these kinds of pieces are essential for playing around graveyard decks. Even aside from comboing, Bloodchief Ascension and Syr Konrad, the Grim can drain opponents pretty quickly once we start milling. Zellix, Sanity Flayer and Unctus, Grand Metatect provide some nice value while milling; Unctus also goes infinite with Aphetto Alchemist.

The deck aims to win in one of three ways: milling people directly, finding combo pieces (for which we run a few tutors, and a heavy draw package) and assembling them, or by grabbing win cons from opponents' graveyards - this flexibility helps to make games varied and also prevents bad feelings when combos are (understandably) disrupted.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 months
Key combos	Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Maddening Cacophony
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.85
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Centaur 3/3 G w/ Pro Black, Copy Clone, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Horror, Morph 2/2 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B