The Only Aggro Mill in Modern was my first major mill deck, and it's performed amicably over the past year of use for such a "budget" deck. But the time has come to see what mill can really do; so I present to you The Perfection of Milling. This is a deck that can mill so quickly and with such ruthlessness, that it's almost not even fun to play... Just kidding, it's incredibly fun and annoying to play. Everyone will hate you; your friends, your opponents, your loved ones, even your dog. But who cares about that? All of their cards will be in the graveyard where they can't use them.
The Mana Base
The mana base, fortunately enough, is pretty cut and dry. Islands and Swamps make up a good portion, with Choked Estuary slipped in for some early game flexibility. Evolving Wilds helps us fix our mana if we find ourself screwed, but also synergises extremely well with Hedron Crab, especially if we have multiples out. Oboro, Palace in the Clouds also synergises incredibly well with the crab, especially if we find ourselves out of options in the mid game.
The Creatures
Hedron Crab The most annoying creature in all of existence, Hedron Crab is an absolute workhorse in the early game, and can be a persistent annoyance throughout the game if not dealt with quickly. A fleet of Hedrons and an Evolving Wilds can get you up to 24 cards worth of mill, just for playing a land.
Thing in the Ice
One of the absolute all-stars in the deck. It's as if the Magic gods had descended and given our deck the perfect tool to make our opponent absolutely hate us. Thing in the Ice is deceptively easy to flip, and has been a win-con in many different games, swinging in for massive amounts of damage and clearing the board to boot.
Snapcaster Mage Expensive, but the ability to flashback our mill spells, or to flashback a Surgical Extraction is unbeatable. May be bumped up to a 4x when money permits.
Mill Spells
Of course, our deck must include the legend that is Glimpse the Unthinkable. For its mana cost, almost nothing can beat it. Ten cards for two mana? Absolutely ridiculous. The only card better than Glimpse (if we can get it for its 0 cost) is Archive Trap. Playing this on turn one after an Evolving Wilds is extremely satisfying, and even late game can give us the win. In the same vein, card:Breaking/Entering is pretty great value for its mana cost. Two mana for eight cards is still quite good, and of course it helps us flip our Thing in the Ice. Mind Funeral is just stupid, especially in decks that have low mana counts. There have been instances where almost half of a players deck simply vanishes because we hit a sweet, sweet creature pocket with our Mind Funeral. Tome Scour gives good value for only the one mana, and is again a cheap way to get Thing in the Ice to flip.
Card Draw, Sideboard, and Omissions
With all the cheap spells, this deck has a tendency to run out of cards quick. card:Though Scour let's us mill a little as well as get a card in our hand, and Visions of Beyond can be dropped exactly when we need it to give us that sweet card advantage.
The sideboard is built partially to deal with other decks that are non-creature focused through cards like Duress and Transgress the Mind. Leyline of the Void is in to deal with Emrakul or other decks based around the graveyard, while Languish slides in to deal with aggro decks. Surgical Extraction takes care of combo pieces.
In the original version of this deck, I had the Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank
combo. After thinking on it for quite a while, the combo takes too long to set up, and when we don't have all of the pieces together, seeing those cards is just inconvenient. So the combo was axed in favor of adding in a few more mill effects and more powerful cards.
That's all I've got for now. As always, I appreciate any feedback as well as upvotes. Thanks for checking it out!
