+1 here. I'm working my mill deck as well so I thought I'd scout yours out when it popped up in the ad. Looks nice!

Surely the ideal play for Baral's Expertise is to bounce two opponents cards and use it to bounce your transformed Startled awake back to your hand to replay?

Zondarian It's true, that's a very good use case I neglected to mention. I should have made this more clear-- my concerns aren't about what to bounce (bounce with this deck is pretty much always good). My concern is what 4-or-less-CMC spell to cast with it. Bouncing 3 things for 5 mana isn't the best without that extra value.

Zondarian Holy crap! I just checked gatherer and it appears that you can actually cast the thing you bounced with Baral's Expertise!

Check out the ruling on 2/9

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?&multiverseid=423696

Thanks so much for causing me to dig a little deeper, I'm taking Baral's Expertise off my unsure list.

That's exactly what I meant bro. Those cards the second cast is after resolution of the first effect. At the point you are casting it that might just be game over :)

Unfortunately Mirage Mirror dies as a state based action if it becomes an aura as it is not enchanting anything like if it becomes a Fraying Sanity. Though you could consider Winds of Rebuke as an Unsummon with upside and can target planeswalkers.

love mill, good deck!

Imprisoned in the Moon seems like a good option in mono blue to deal with the gods and pw's

How about Brain in a Jar so you can play 2 startled awakes with sanity on board. It's no joke to mill 52 in a turn. Also you should probably add some gy hate in your sb in case of shuffle-in effects.

How do you find your matches against agro?

I have a somewhat similar deck, but went all-in bounce to survive that red beating in my meta, and would like some intel form a fellow mill player :P

Zondarian ianknox you cant cast what you bounced from Baral's Expertise. It's stated in the ruling that Baral's Expertise is still on the stack when you cast the free spell. This means that nothing gets bounced until you cast your free spell.

"While youre casting your free spell, the Expertise spell is still on the stack. It will be put into its owners graveyard after the free spell is cast. The free spell cant target the Expertise card in your graveyard. It can target the Expertise spell on the stack, but the Expertise spell will become an illegal target before the free spell resolves."

if the spell is still on the stack nothing happens to the targeted Creatures/Artifacts. If you have 9 Mana you can cast both in the same turn and get a free 4 drop but your not going to be able to bounce a flipped Startled Awake and then cast it for free because of the stack ruling above.

Wow thanks for all the feedback tappedout!

Eredes Bleh-- Good point, I forgot that's a curse and not just an "any opponent" enchantment. I don't love the self mill with Winds of Rebuke (it never fails I end up milling my own Fraying Sanity), but it's probably a good sideboard option against PW heavy decks.

frogkill45 That's a good call. My PW plan was just countermagic, but a little removal is also good and gives us a chance to survive if we need to tap out for a turn and they drop a Gideon or something.

n4pesto I'm not a huge fan of Brain in a Jar, it's timing is kind of fragile and I'd rather just draw another bouncer. There's also no real advantage to milling out in one shot most of the time.

Airwings I won't lie-- agro is a tough matchup. The majority of my losses in play testing with friends have been to fast zombies. I usually just side in all my creature countermagic and be more willing to chump block.

MTGUniversity Thanks!

Zienem I see what you're saying but I'm not sure... the very top ruling on gatherer reads "The card that you cast may be an artifact or creature that was returned to your hand by this spell" which seems to contradict that. Admittedly Persistent Nightmare  ^Flip can't be cast as a creature per se, but the concept remains the same.

The ruling you mention seems to be concerned with recasting whatever you bounce with Baral's Expertise to interact with that same copy of Baral's Expertise while it's in the graveyard potentially causing an infinite loop.

n0bunga So I agree with you slightly, I wouldnt use Unquenchable Thirst , Spontaneous Mutation is just so much better it is less mana, has flash and could easily replace, Imprisoned in the Moon plus works really great with Winds of Rebuke which is really usefull at getting rid of planeswalkers and it mills, two for one. The lands are just to great not to have, its a late game finisher, you can mill 16 in one turn with 2 of them. Also I think Vessel of Paramnesia is terrible considering Strategic Planning is a thing its an anticipate that supports delirium heavily.

I am listing my deck here I am trying a creatureless approach just to help eliminate creature kill.

Standard mill might work again?

Standard* Zienem

0 VIEWS

Wow, some very high quality discourse here! Thanks so much for the feedback n0bunga and Zienem! I'm seriously thinking of taking this deck (or a variant thereof) to the GP in Denver in a few weeks so I really appreciate the input.

A few thoughts (in no particular order):

• This deck is likely due for a bit of a re-vamp post pro-tour this weekend. Right now a lot of the choices are based on my understanding of the meta from rumblings heard in /r/spikes and my own guesses both of which aren't always so accurate. :)

• Both Imprisoned in the Moon and Commit / Memory were put in for combating planeswalkers (something Unquenchable Thirst and Spontaneous Mutation can't do). I put them in when a superfriends type deck was looking strong. If the pro-tour shows otherwise I'll drop them in a heartbeat since they're much more expensive than I would like.

• I'm not super concerned about energy or delirium because I expect to do a lot of board bouncing. The goal here isn't so much to keep using Manic Scribes and Minister of Inquiries's abilities, rather to bounce and re-cast them with Baral's Expertise or Engulf the Shore and use them to chump if it becomes necessary. Based on that concept, I should probably get rid of The Aether Hubs. They're really just there because they enable a second version of a T4 mill out, which is a silly reason to keep them.

• Ipnu Rivulet is such a tough call to me. Pros: Mana early when you need it and mill later when you don't. Cons: Dilutes Engulf the Shore, the late game mill is too late (meaning that I rarely feel like I have enough mana to be ok with dumping a land). I'll do some play testing, but I suspect that I'll end up with a few in the sideboard for more grindy matchups but not 4 of.

• Both Glimmer of Genius and Winds of Rebuke are on my "should try" list. Winds in particular seems like a good idea for certain matchups (and can target PWers) but the few times I tried it in past builds I always end up milling my own best cards. I know that statistically my opponent might also mill their own best cards as well, but with all the GY synergy these days (Zombies, God-Pharaoh's Gift, etc) it probably hurts me more than them.

• It would have helped if I had penned a better description of what I'm up to here (mea culpa on that one). The goal is to mill out my opponent as fast as is possible. An aggro-mill if you will.

Anywho, thanks for the comments and upvotes! Check back after this weekend for an updated look post pro-tour!

I have a similar deck that does not rely on startles awake of engulf, which makes it standard legal even after rotation:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/all-fish-no-sanity/