Wanting to make a mill deck
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 3, 2016, 3:57 p.m. by Podma101
In my play group, both of my decks have pretty much become the idol of everyone's hatred. If I try to play either one to any effectiveness, they will remove the problem and then remove me, but they will almost ALWAYS ignore what everyone else has going on. To remedy this, I wanted to design a deck that might not get focused into oblivion, and decided that a mill deck would do that just nicely. However, I do not know mill well and am not sure where I want to take it; all I know is I want mill to be the central and largest theme, even to a fault perhaps.
What I would like help on is who I should have pilot the deck, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker or Phenax, God of Deception? I could probably have the exact same deck with either of them, but I know I could also do a lot of walls and big toughness creatures with Phenax. Any thoughts or input?
TripleResistance says... #3
Of the two you have listed, I would use the god. Just because he's indestructible and you can use the ability at instant speed before a wrath resolves or on the endstep before your turn.
May 3, 2016 4:20 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #4
My personal favorite mill guy is Lazav, Dimir Mastermind. While he doesn't mill like your two you suggested, he plays off the mill theme much better. copying someone's Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is very fun. Plus the hexproof is added protection.
May 3, 2016 4:24 p.m.
MrDilliams says... #5
Of those two I feel as though Phenax has a better chance to stay on the board. And as TripleResistance has already said, he is able to be a bit trickier. My mill commander is Szadek, Lord of Secrets, because if they ignore him for a little bit he gets out of control. But, I am also running a mill combo Helm of Obedience + Leyline of the Void as the major win con, and so the rest of the deck is more of distraction with more traditional mill.
May 3, 2016 4:57 p.m.
Consuming Aberration+Rite of Replication is a great combo in a Phenax deck. If you can give them haste, it's an instant kill for any player.
May 3, 2016 5:57 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #7
With phenax, yes his ability is cool and he is hard to remove. But if you haven't enough devotion, he can't use his own ability. And if your creatures get targeted, you're kinda out of luck.
If you must go his route, Grim Grin + Undead Alchemist + Phenax can potentially mill entire libraries. Also, Thousand-Year Elixir is your best friend.
May 3, 2016 6:40 p.m.
Of those two, I have found that Phenax, God of Deception is the better of the two. He is who I have my Commander/EDH Mill deck built around. The guaranteed mill of a certain amount (relatively speaking) as opposed to the maybe with Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker makes him a better choice.
May 3, 2016 6:49 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #9
I will speak against the majority and say I like Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker the most for my mill deck. my deck list here is pretty outdated, but he fairs well and I have all of the other mentioned creatures. Phenax is nice, but as noted, your creatures get heavily targeted with him, making him kind of null. give Mirko the boost of a Fireshrieker and Sword of Body and Mind and you have yourself a happy milling time.
also be sure to include Jester's Cap so useful during different parts of the game. Exile their Eldrazi titans, or if you are close enough, take out some land cards and keep putting the pressure on them. Traumatize and Archive Trap are must haves as well.
May 3, 2016 6:56 p.m.
Based on all of this I think I will go the Phenax, God of Deception route. Mirko Wil definitely be in there, along with most of the other suggestions. I probably won't do the whole wall thing, I feel that is too easily punctured. Thank you all very much! I hope to make them all cry!
May 3, 2016 7:02 p.m.
Ah crap, that is a good point. To hell with it, I'll just make a deck and try them both. The decks wouldn't be too different as it as and it's too much to make a sound decision during my nuclear final review lol
May 3, 2016 7:04 p.m.
Regardless all of these ideas to have my mind turning, and I appreciate it deeply! I can only hope they'll leave this deck alone, otherwise I'm unsure as what to do lol
May 3, 2016 7:05 p.m.
I love mill, but I find that outside of combo it is safer to exile than to mill. Too many decks use their graveyard as an extension of their hand to mill 2, 4, or 10 cards at a time.
May 3, 2016 7:06 p.m.
My group has super limited graveyard interaction. Actually my decks are the only ones that even touch graveyards 95% of the time, so I won't be too worried.
May 3, 2016 7:15 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #15
Nobody has mentioned Wrexial, the Risen Deep. He doesn't mill on his own, but with Islandwalk and Swampwalk he can beat for a lot of commander damage and you can focus your mill spells on the other players for the most part. Throw a SoBM or Trepanation Blade on him and you'll get your milling.
May 3, 2016 9:21 p.m.
I happen to own him as well. Ughhhhhh so many decisions XD! This will be a long term project with school ending in a few days so I'll have time to figure this all out
May 3, 2016 9:36 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #17
Podma101 If you haven't seen it, check out my Phenax mill deck, Lord of the Lies
I prefer Phenax as a general personally, but run Lazav, and Wrexial in the 99. With Phenax in play, Eater of the Dead is a combo on it's own.
May 3, 2016 10:06 p.m.
Honestly, mill for the sake of mill in EDH isn't the greatest. People mostly use it for secondary effects like with Lazav, Dimir Mastermind who can copy your opponent's bombs, or with Undead Alchemist whom exiles and creates zombies for you. It's because the Eldrazi's are fairly commonplace in most EDH decks (at least from what I've seen at the LGS) and allow them to reshuffle their decks in response. Now if your meta/LGS don't run them then mill can be effective. You'll most likely be focusing on the 99 more than your general with those two options. Things like Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank , Leyline of the Void/Planar Void, Mesmeric Orb will be all-stars in your deck. I run Lazav with Phenax in the 99 and the amusing thing is Lazav can become a Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre with hexproof when I mill one into a yard...
Just beware when running Leyline of the Void/Planar Void that it's a replacement effect, they no longer hit the graveyard (except for tokens, they hit the yard). So things that trigger from things hitting the yard like with Hoarding Dragon, Undead Alchemist, Bloodchief Ascension, ect. no longer work.
May 3, 2016 10:10 p.m.
If you're still open to commander suggestions, why not make a The Mimeoplasm deck? it gives you more flexibility than a traditional blue/black mill deck and you can use effects like Buried Alive and Entomb to run some backup win conditions.
Also Flagellum, Leyline of the Void is a replacement effect but Planar Void isn't. it's a triggered ability when the card hits the graveyard.
May 4, 2016 1:12 a.m. Edited.
Ender666666 says... #20
Flagellum, with all due respect, people need to stop thinking of mill as a non-viable EDH strategy. Eldrazi are problematic, sure, but that's what cards like Sadistic Sacrament and Praetor's Grasp are for.
Beyond that, remember that the abilities of the Eldrazi titans to reshuffle, are triggered abilities that can be responded to. So if you mill a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, you can exile it with Eater of the Dead or Dimir Doppelganger in response to the trigger.
Before you write mill off, I highly recommend that you take a look at a list like mine, and try it out. It wins most games where I bring it out.
May 4, 2016 7:38 a.m. Edited.
AliceInQuantumland says... #21
I think Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker is more targetable than Phenax, God of Deception.
May 4, 2016 10:01 a.m.
Ender666666 I have looked at your deck before and I do like it a lot actually! Far too expensive for my tastes quite honestly, but I can make something in that vein work. My question for you then is how often do you have it where people just keep removing your creatures and other cards besides Phenax to the point where you just have him without enough devotion? That is my one concern: being left stranded with just him in play.
May 4, 2016 12:08 p.m.
Ender666666: Perhaps you misunderstood. Mill for the sake of mill, I.e. getting a deck from 99 to 0 is indeed much more difficult to pull off, especially in a multiplayer setting when most mass mill effects target a single player. It also does not advance your board state and draws a lot of hate. The strategy is pretty straightforward and easy to anticipate. A lot of decks use their graveyards for fuel. By milling them you can do them a favor. That is why it is not the best strategy in EDH.
But don't assume I am writing mill off altogether. It is however, much more effective in settings where little gy interaction occurs and/or a lack of Eldrazi. Much like the setting the OP describes.
It is what you do with mill that makes it viable. My Lazav deck is mill for instance, but I use mill to do things with my commander, animate my opponents creatures, cause damage, copy my opponents creatures, ect. I.e. I use mill for its secondary effects. So no, I'm not writing mill off as useless, but straight mill is.
May 4, 2016 12:09 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #24
Certainly, it is important to gain extra benefits from milling your opponents, but I do strongly disagree with you about milling for milling's sake. My deck has multiple angles of attack, but goal number one is to mill everyone into Oblivion.
May 4, 2016 11:15 p.m.
Ender666666: the biggest issue with mill is when it's intermittent. Ignoring reshuffle effects, if you can hit all players on board for a Mind Grind for X=20+ then mill can be very powerful. But the problem the you run into is when you see mill decks only hitting 5 or so cards a turn.
Oustide of combo mill (which is just another combo outlet and not really mill, let's face it), unless you can start hitting A LOT of cards quickly, mill is generally underpowered compared to things like combat damage since typically there will only be one mill player at the table who has to hit up to 300 cards (assuming a 4 player game). Combat damage on the other hand is something that most decks can at least have a stab at and there is only 120 damage that needs to be dealt (less if you're playing voltron). That's typically why mill is considered weaker.
Like all strategies, it CAN be made viable depeding on the build you run and how focused you make the deck. It's jus twith mill, there are bigger hurdles to jump over to make it work at the same level as some others.
May 5, 2016 12:21 a.m.
Ender666666 says... #26
enpc Absolutely. I can't disagree with you there. I am talking about builds like mine, where you're running Mesmeric Orb and Dreamborn Muse for massive disruption every upkeep, Mind Erosion to discourage casting... Etc etc.. Just like discard, or Stax, when done right, and at the right scale, mill is incredibly effective at stopping your opponents from playing the game, their way.
One other point to address, Yes. Mill can and will help certain decks than rely on their graveyards, in the short term, and that's where I play politically. I'll offer to Mill a player like that and let them run amock, provided they leave me alone. Obviously, this gains me an Ally, and takes the target off of my back. Being political is important.
Anyhow, that's how I see it and run Lord of the Lies
May 5, 2016 6 a.m.
That's honestly why I wanted to make a mill deck. I prefer the political decks that have a lot of player interaction rather than a boring old creature deck that just plays creatures. That's why I have a Nekusar deck, and my creature deck uses grave interaction to be interesting. What I am hoping for out of this is a deck where I can be ultra selective with my mill, along with some AoE mill to keep working at everyone. My meta is annoying in the fact that they will ignore creatures 90% of the time until it starts attacking (people build boards to the heavens before others care), but if something happens to start touching them (say Nekusar, the Mindrazer
), it's the gallows for you. I want this to be a deck most of them find fun playing against, and not just "kill this guy, then play the game"
May 5, 2016 7:37 a.m.
I agree with enpc; mill decks are hard to win with in EDH without going the combo route. It sounds like your best options are combo (like Phenax and Eater of the Dead), and reanimation. Cards like Endless Obedience, Coffin Queen, and Lazav, Dimir Mastermind are all good cards to have in an EDH mill deck.
If you want to try a political deck, in my experience there are two things that help a lot:
Have a commander that doesn't look threatening. When I tried Rubinia Soulsinger and Progenitus, I noticed that generally people would leave me alone, because Rubinia is 2/3 and Progenitus won't come out until turn 7 or 8 at the earliest.
Play a ton of instants. Once your opponents learn that attacking you results in spells like Broken Visage, Evacuation, Fault Line, Rout, or Hunting Pack, they will be more reluctant to do so.
In answer to your original question, I would go with Phenax. He's harder to remove, combos very well with untap effects like Turnabout, Galvanic Alchemist, and Horseshoe Crab, and your opponents won't be too worried about him until you have seven devotion.
TripleResistance says... #2
Why not create an Oona, Queen of the Fae infinite mana combo deck?
May 3, 2016 4:16 p.m.