This is not your run-of-the-mill mill deck. Examining the other mill decks that have sprung up since ELD was released made me realize that there was untapped potential in the design space. The inspiration of the deck comes from the idea of value. This is achieved through a combination of
Drowned Secrets
and the blue Adventure cards
Brazen Borrower
and
Hypnotic Sprite
. Who doesn't like the idea of bouncing an opponents 5 or 6 drop, playing a 3/1 flyer, and milling 4 with ONE card on THEIR endstep.
Usually decks like this suffer against Aggro, but with the existence of
Vantress Gargoyle
for a big body and
Brazen Borrower
for tempo you can weather the storm fairly well until you reach your win conditions.
Against control decks the aforementioned creature cards in addition to
Thief of Sanity
are excellent at applying pressure given their cheap costs and high damage (at least in the case of
Vantress Gargoyle
). The endgame however is less advantageous as the deck lacks threats but attempts to leverage this by playing cards like Covetous Urge to blindside them and gain value from their hand/graveyard. (Note: Stealing Adventure cards only lets you use any color mana to cast one half).
Against mid-range decks this deck really shines, you'll be able to safely get one or more
Drowned Secrets
out and easily maintain tempo with counters, bouncing, and the plethora of removal while slowly milling them.
I prefer Eye Collector due to three aspects: it's a 1/1 flyer, it thins your own deck, and mills them (potentially more than 4). The fact that you can bin
Lochmere Serpent
off of it is stellar. Merfolk Secretkeeper is great for pure mill, especially with a
Drowned Secrets
on the battlefield (mill 8 and get a big body for 2 is pretty spicy against aggro decks).
At first I thought jamming 8 milling counterspells would be great, but late game those are dead cards when your opponent's board state is already established (and with 8 copies you're going to draw them A LOT). If I was running Merfolk Secretkeeper I would probably more strongly consider it since you can get to 7 cards in their graveyard by the end of turn 3 and start swinging with Vantress Gargoyle. However, I found that
Drown in the Loch
was less disheartening of a draw and can even be used on tokens in a pinch.
I'm not sure about this card. It seems like a liability early in the game but (much) later it seems like it would be fantastic. I need to experiment with it a bit more.
Devoting slots to Persistent Petitioners feels like a waste, you need a lot of them to reliably get 4 onto the field, and then you're screwed if they wipe your board (which they almost certainly will).
