This deck is from our new vodcast Mull to 3, Season 2 Episode 5 'Mull to the Future' posted on the 20th of November 2017.
Setting the Scene
Mill is an extremely unusual and extremely fun way to play magic, and the Modern format has many powerful mill cards that wizards has printed over the years (see Archive Trap). Despite this however, mill has never been able to get over the hump and become a Tier 1 deck.
Mill decks do currently exist in Modern, but they are slow, grindy, and not particularly effective, relying heavily on gradual mill cards like Mesmeric Orb. A major issue is that they aren't fast enough to beat aggro or combo decks that are able to win the game by turn 4.
The release of Hour of Devastation has provided us with what could be the most powerful mill card to be printed in a very long time - Fraying Sanity, and the release of Ixalan has provided us with an extremely powerful synergy card - Field of Ruin. Could this be mill's time to shine?
The Challenge
Is it possible to make a mill deck that was as fast or faster than the current aggro or combo decks ruling the format? I originally built a burn-style mill deck and then moved onto a more combo-style build. This final take is a hybrid of the two, and is also far more consistent and effective.
The Plan
'Mill to 3 - Hybrid Style' will aim to mill out your opponent's library by functioning along two main lines of attack, the first focussing on leveraging the raw power of Fraying Sanity as a key turn 3 play and using the prior and following turns to burn-mill hard and fast, and the second using the unique synergy between Field of Ruin and Archive Trap to end the game with a combo-mill finisher.
Turn 0
Turn 0 is where you ask the age old question, to trap or not to trap?
Archive Trap is a card that can be used during your opponent's first turn before you even play a land. The most ideal way to use this card is at the end of your opponent's first turn after they fetch - watch their face sink as they mill a whopping 13 cards. This isn't always such a straight forward decision however. If you are playing against dredge, reanimator, or death's shadow, you might want to hold back an early Archive Trap and use them on a later turn, or risk giving them tonnes of dredge, reanimation, or delve fodder. Remember that the activated ability of Field of Ruin forces your opponent to search their library, so an Archive Trap not used on turn 0 can still be used later on in the game.
Turns 1-2
Turns 1-2 are used to set up your board state and sculpt your hand.
Minister of Inquiries, and the all time all star Hedron Crab can be played on turns 1 and 2 to sit on the board and wait to do some major milling once Fraying Sanity hits the board on turn 3. With a Fraying Sanity in play suddenly these 1 cost creatures can each mill anywhere from 12-33 cards by turn 4.
These are also the turns in which you start to sculpt your hand and library. Halimar Depths lets you dig three cards deep, avoiding any unwanted cards that may be coming your way. If you don't like any of the cards that you see - not a problem! Just crack a fetch-land or Trapmaker's Snare to shuffle your library or mill yourself with one of the one drop creatures. Serum Visions fulfills a similar role - but a pro tip would be to almost always use Halimar Depths first, you never know when you really need a land to not come into play tapped so get it out of the way early.
Turn 2 is a very important turn as this is where you'll start to decide which of the two lines of attack you'll be going down this game. If you have a Field of Ruin in hand alongside a few Archive Traps or Trapmaker's Snares then you'll probably want to go down the burn-combo line and use a Trapmaker's Snare this turn to start filling your hand with Archive Traps before you activate the Field of Ruin. However if you are missing one half (or all) of that combo, you will probably just want to follow a more straight forward burn-mill approach, and potentially think of playing one of the two drop mill spells like Glimpse the Unthinkable or Breaking / Entering if you've already run out of one drop creatures or cantrips.
Turn 3
Turn 3 is where we aim to drop our big gun, Fraying Sanity. If this card resolves on turn 3 there is a very high chance that you will win the game the next turn. If you don't get our signature card don't fear, this can be fairly successfully replaced this turn by a single Mind Funeral, or else a combination of one cost creatures/cantrips and one of our two cost mill spells.
Turn 4
This is it, the end game. If all has gone well to this point you have a real chance to finish your opponent's library off on this turn, so play wisely.
Ideally this turn you want to play a either a combination of two cost mill spells like Glimpse the Unthinkable or Breaking / Entering, play either one of these spells or a Trapmaker's Snare after a Field of Ruin activation (as the 3 cost activation gives you an extra untapped land, giving you access to 5 mana that turn), or just lay down a Mind Funeral to try to finish the job. With a Fraying Sanity in play this turn often feels too easily and you tend to mill many more cards than your opponent has left in their library, and an activated Field of Ruin can often have similar results. If you've managed to pull it off congratulations - a turn 4 mill win! Watch your opponent shake their head in disbelief.
Caveats
Now you could argue this is goldfishing and that magic never works like this - and you would be right. In reality the turn 4 win is not common, due to your opponents deck interacting with you through either removal or disruption. However if your opponent's deck is interacting with you - this is probably slowing them down, which means that you can probably afford to win by turn 5 anyway. The turn 4 win is most important against extremely fast decks that have little interaction - against slower decks you can afford to wait, in fact them drawing more cards and drawing the game out suits you fine.
In addition mill is also classically a very fragile deck, which struggles with specific hate cards. It is also a deck that fuels certain strategies like dredge and reanimator. This build has a sideboard arsenal of cards built to deal with these circumstances which will be discussed below.
Something else that you would likely be thinking is where is Visions of Beyond? Not using one of the most viable ways of playing Ancestral Recall would seem crazy to many. The reason for this is that this card detracts from the goal of a turn 4 win. On turns 1-3 this card will almost always just be a cantrip which is not helpful and reduces tempo. On turn 4 when this card is most likely to be at it's full potential, you don't want to spend 1 mana drawing additional cards, you want to use all of your available mana to mill your opponent. Visions of Beyond is a great card in a slower more grindy mill build, but doesn't work well in this build. You could also ask why Crypt Incursion isn't a mainboard card - and this is for the same reasons, it slows the deck down too much and interferes with the plan for a turn 4 win.
The Sideboard
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn shuffling away your opponents graveyard can be an issue for mill decks, however to be fair not many decks and rocking the big boss eldrazi these days. Regardless 'Mill to 3 - Hybrid Style' has a sideboard answer, which can be easily found by our maindeck tutor. Trapmaker's Snare can be used to search for one of the best Emrakul anti-hate cards in the game, Ravenous Trap. If you have one of these bad boys in your hand you can watch an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn enter your opponent's graveyard with glee, and then exile it and the entire graveyard once the ability goes on the stack. Mindbreak Trap is another card that can be tutored by the snare, and this one-off is a bit of a fun card that I put in to make the match up against Storm a bit more interesting.
The Ravenous Traps are not the only graveyard hate. Milling a Dredge or Reanimator opponent can cause issues, so we also have three copies of Crypt Incursion to provide extra coverage while also extending out the time you have to mill with life gain. This card also works really well on creature dense decks like Affinity, any form of Hate bear deck, or Eldrazi and Taxes. Three copies of Bontu's Last Reckoning are additional cards to side in against these decks, as drawing into multiple Crypt Incursions generally isn't the best thing.
The three copies of Devour Flesh are sideboard tech mainly focussing on dealing with Death's Shadow, but that can also be useful against Bogles or Infect. In the Death's Shadow matchup playing a Devour Flesh at the right time can eliminate a threat and also place a considerable dent in their attempts to lower their life, rendering Death's Shadow unplayable.
Set Adrift is a versatile removal card that can be used to destroy one of our greatest weak spots Leyline of Sanctity - but also troublesome planeswalkers or Blood Moons in a pinch. The beauty of Set Adrift is that once you put the permanent onto the top of their library you can mill it away with another card - effectively destroying it. Another bonus is that even if your opponent has a Leyline in play, you can still mill yourself to provide delve fodder so that Set Adrift becomes more affordable.
Advanced Tips
Don't fetch all of your basics out! You need at least one (generally preferably an island) still in your library for you to benefit from the land searching effect of Field of Ruin. Also on that note try to avoid playing Field of Ruin until the turn you plan to activate it - playing it early leaves it open to removal from natural enemy cards like Ghost Quarter.
Use your Hedron Crab and Minister of Inquiries activations wisely. There is little more satisfying than watching your opponent use Serum Visions, scry a card or two to the top, only to watch them get milled into their graveyard. In saying that however always be careful and try to use Hedron Crab's landfall triggers in your turn - as your opponent can use removal in response to the fetch trigger, meaning you miss out on a potentially crucial chance to mill.
Trapmaker's Snare is a fun card but it can be tricky to use. If you are on the play and are up against a deck that has a high chance to search their library on turn 2 (think either Tron or decks with a large number of fetch lands), consider holding up your mana on your second turn and searching out an Archive Trap after they search. This is a game by game decision however as sometimes it's a better idea to play cantrips and get out a crab or two.
Hedron Crab seems like a great turn 1 play, but from experience it is often much better when played on turn 2. When played on turn 1 it can get Fatal Pushed without causing any mill, however on turn 2 you can usually get 3-6 cards milled with a fetch-land before your opponent is able to remove it. I tend to play Minister of Inquiries first to draw any removal, hopefully paving the way for the Crab to tear up the game.
Get those Halimar Depths out early, playing a land that enters the battlefield tapped on turn 3 or 4 can be very painful and foil your otherwise perfect plan for the turn 4 win.
Conclusion
I've had a blast with this deck, from exiling graveyards as your opponent attempts to reanimate, milling cards they have just scried to the top, playing four Archive Traps as your opponent cracks their second fetch, and adding insult to injury to Tron decks by destroying the key component of their tron mana base while milling out their entire library following a Field of Ruin activation.
With 'Mill to 3 - Hybrid Style' we may still not have quite yet found a tier one Modern deck, but Fraying Sanity and Field of Ruin has opened up a whole new world that is waiting to be taken advantage of!
Have fun decking your opponents, and remember - where there is a mill there is a way!
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