(Deck Banner Coming Soon!)
I don't know why I keep wanting to design Modern decks with Sphinx's Tutelage, but this one I really like. This deck can completely kill someone in less than 7 turns with just straight aggro, or mill them just as fast. Or both.
This is what I call, "Kill & Mill".
So the 16 unblockable creatures pair very well with
Trepanation Blade
which is one way to destroy someone very quickly. With a lucky (or unlucky depending on what side of the table you are on) reveal, several cards can get milled by declaring an attacker with
Trepanation Blade
before a land comes up which causes a lot of damage. Latch Seeker can really be devastating with 3 attack damage on it's own, but every attack with a Blade grants a minimum of 1 more damage, and will likely be at least a few more. Tossing Curiosity onto the same creature means that after you attack and mill a bunch of cards, you get to draw a card and trigger Sphinx's Tutelage to mill a bunch more cards. Visions of Beyond becomes a real bomb very quickly by causing a quick 3 card draw as soon as their graveyard is up to 20 cards, and that will trigger three spins of the Tutelage wheel of fortune and mill at least 6 more cards. Thought Scour is already a great card for a single blue, but with Tutelage it mills a minimum of 4 cards and you could draw even more mill.
The last piece of the puzzle is Mindcrank which adds up even more mill all in the same attack by dropping another card for every damage dealt. Everything being unblockable ensures that a whole lot of cards are going to drop into the graveyard quickly every attack.
Unlike most Tutelage decks in Standard that focus on tempo to get set up and cross their fingers that they can force enough mill to win before they get stomped by creatures, this deck focuses on being relentlessly aggressive while bringing the hurt to life points and the library at the same time.
The sideboard consists of those tempo and control cards that can help shift the tides if you are playing against a deck that can pull out a win faster than you can, and since there is a lot of luck involved that determines how fast you are going to be able to win you just might need some extra draw and counter to edge out a win. If your opponent doesn't have that perfect combination of burn, removal, control, and artifact/enchantment hate then one of those win conditions is sure to get through.
Zur's Weirding seems fun here. If they let you draw the card, Tutelage will mill at least two cards. If they don't let you draw the card, they lost two life to Mindcrank and then mill two cards anyway. Yay!
Shelldock Isle is a fun game of shells that could turn out a really early win (as soon as turn 4 if everything lines up). Thought it could be fun to throw in Enter the Infinite from the sideboard to just obliterate someones Library for game 2 if you won game 1 and want to try something ridiculous. I like the idea of basically nothing being hidden under the shell though too, leaving your opponent to guess what kind of trouble lurks in the shadows... More fun! Temporal Mastery could be a nice option as well. Actually, finding 4 power draw cards and having one of each in the deck to randomly stumble upon and hide under a shell could be pretty interesting. It would make it harder for your opponent to guess what is going to happen. Although, if you have them down to their last 20 cards in a deck like this, you are about to win anyways. It's just insult to injury in most cases, but what a way to go!
Playtesting this deck on paper really shows a lot of interesting promise and shines as an unexpected approach to mill.
So there you have it, an aggressive mill deck that could actually win with lethal damage at the same time. Let me know what you think in the comments, and I thank you for reading :)
