Lovecraft-themed heavy mill deck. It's a theme deck that has the potential to harm you as much as it harms your opponents. Because wielding the power and the knowledge of The Great Old Ones comes at a steep price.
Lot's of deliberate choices were made with these cards. I went for flavor over function here. It's intentionally dangerous to the user. See if you can win before the power of the Ancients consumes you!
The core mechanic here is to make use of the tap ability granted to all your creatures by Phenax, God of Deception, so get him down early! And him being indestructible, it shouldn't be too hard to keep him out!
So you dump out gross, terrifying nightmare spawn, then tap them at the end of your opponents' turn, before your upkeep, and mill one or more opponents for a lot. When you have enough devotion, Phenax can tap himself to mill someone an additional 7 cards.
Tidewater Minion
and
Twiddle
are there to give you the potential for double-tapping one or more creatures for double mill!
On top of that, you've got other heavy mill spells like Traumatize,
Mind Funeral
, and
Mind Grind
, as well as
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
(aka Mind Funeral on a stick!).
Consuming Aberration is a nightmare bomb, particularly if you've got Altar of Dementia out! So, if someone tries to destroy/exile Consuming Aberration before it's lost summoning sickenss (and you're unable to tap it in response to mill for a lot) you can sacrifice at instant speed to Altar of Dementia and...yeah, mill for a lot...
The deck also revolves around forcing everyone to draw and discard a ridiculous amount of cards. Cards like Temple Bell,
Dictate of Kruphix
, Font of Mythos, Howling Mine,
Fascination
, etc. Then when they have these giant, unmanageable hands and discard, Megrim and Liliana's Caress will make short work of their life totals. Waste Not and
Geth's Grimoire
can net you additional benefits whenever your opponents discard! All else fails, you can Whispering Madness. This is a game winning card in this deck! Not only does it force everyone to discard their entire hand (hopefully they had a lot) but it then FORCES everyone to draw equal to the highest hand size (presumably yours). After some heavy milling and an opponent has maybe twelve cards left in their library, then you discard say 14 and then they draw....you see how that ends.
Oh also, Underworld Dreams, with all that card draw. Nuff said.
You can Diabolic Tutor for your Reliquary Tower if you need, so you can take advantage of
Mind Unbound
and
Jushi Apprentice
, which you might want to because Sphinx's Tutelage can be utterly devastating, and was an obvious instant inclusion when it was released in Origins! Oh, and see how big you can get
Chasm Skulker
before he pops!
The coup de grace here is
Crumbling Sanctuary
. The possibilities are nothing short of a riot. Damage is converted to EXILE mill. Get Megrim out, and whenever an opponent discards, they are ALSO milling (Liliana's Caress won't interact with 'Sanctuary because it causes loss of life, not damage). So everyone draw a lot, discard a lot, get dealt a lot of damage, mill a lot of cards. It also prevents commander damage full stop. Works well with Underworld Dreams as well, if you're forcing a whole lot of card draw. Don't be surprised if people start scooping out once
Crumbling Sanctuary
comes out! It straight up exiles cards, along with Planar Void. Late game Oblivion Sower is useful if an opponent has been forced to exile a lot of their land. Or if someone has a lot of land in their graveyard, drop a Bojuka Bog, THEN the Sower, and ramp the hell up!
Zur's Weirding is another fun bit of flavor that completely shifts the dynamic of the game. Suddenly, players are gambling life to keep one another from drawing dangerous cards, and there are no secrets! Counterspells like
Induce Paranoia
and
Countermand
(and Counterspell!!) are displayed for all to see, and everyone has to pick their plays more carefully and consciously. I love it! Imagine the possibilities in having this and
Crumbling Sanctuary
out at the same time.
Self-harm cards like
Cosmic Horror
, Mindslicer and
Polar Kraken
are risky, trump cards that fit the flavor too well.
Cosmic Horror
, in particular, is handy because, sure, it cuts your mana base down by six, but it's a constant seven card mill every turn! People might be tempted to allow it to stay on the battlefield to force you to stay low on mana, which is fine. Late game, you should have enough problems on the board that relinquishing six mana every upkeep shouldn't be an issue.
You should just never cast
Descent into Madness
though. Seriously, don't. It's a bad idea. Nobody wins when Descent' hits the board. Everyone loses.
Supplant Form
on Diluvian Primordial once you've cast it is also a pretty disgusting combo to try!
Not sure what else to highlight, everything else is pretty self explanatory. Codex Shredder to retrieve crucial cards that have been inadvertently milled away (like Psychic Spiral!!);
Grozoth
to get all your gross nine mana monstrosities into your hand;
Leviathan
becomes surprisingly viable once you have more ways of untapping it;
Geth, Lord of the Vault
to take someone else's big gross creature, and also mill them for a lot.
Crypt Incursion
is in there to net you some life should you need it late game, and it acts as a cheaper
Ghastly Conscription
at ensuring an opponent can't reanimate any of their creatures. Also,
Ghastly Conscription
with Altar of Dementia on the board is another winning combo! Zur's Weirding and
Crumbling Sanctuary
completely change up the way the game is played. Mind Stone, Curse of the Bloody Tome, Unknown Shores,
Shipbreaker Kraken
and a few other cards, while not particularly effective, are there for obvious flavor.
What I love most about this deck is that it can be played both passively and aggressively. You can go full on, heavy mill, and tap your creatures every chance you get, dropping Traumatize and
Mind Funeral
as soon as you can. Or you can play more passively, and only mill in response or in retaliation. Just drop Megrim, Liliana's Caress, Underworld Dreams, all those card draw artifacts and enchantments, and
Crumbling Sanctuary
, sit back, and let everyone sort out their own impending insanity!