I am badly in need of a Commander to play (I am new) and cannot decide on who - going Dimir
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 9, 2019, 11:28 p.m. by HollowProphet
Long story short, I got an Inalla pre-con from my brother for Christmas. I started playing Magic at the release of Ultimate Masters. I draft every Friday and weeks ago I got into EDH. Inalla needed a ton of work to upgrade so he loaned me his Edgar deck to play with to get a better feel for the game.
Now I am building my first non-precon EDH deck ever. I am going to go with Sultai Tasigur or Muldrotha BUT I cannot afford to build the complete deck right now due to some bills... you know how life goes. Once I get caught up from all of that then it is fine. Fast forward to now.
I have a fair amount of good items from Sultai. Then I wanted to play Dimir mill. Then I did a bunch of homework and built a prototype deck and then I read "oh in EDH with multiple players it is so hard to mill 100 card decks". Being new I have no idea if this is even true or not. I typically play 3-4 people on average when I play once a week. Then I kept switching commanders. Then I settled on The Scarab God. Then after I read "oh in EDH with multiple players it is so hard to mill 100 card decks" I said OK, tribal zombies with The Scarab God.
I have no idea what to do at this point and now I am frustrated because I cannot really get help on what is more accurate and what would be a good use of money. I have to go budget for now just so I can get playing something that is not aggro vampires and anything I end up spending on this deck and cannot use for Sultai is just detracting from the overall purpose. I have a number of upgrades available from Sultai as I said.
Here is a list of options I have available to upgrade with: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dimir-mill-budget-upgrade-v691077/ - I hope you can see it. I am not sure if it is private or not, I can fix it if not.
I would love to go mill, but the opinion just differs on who you talk to. And I cannot get consistent enough help, I end up spending a bunch of time trying to come up with a deck, then I start all over. I go to EDHRec, I go to ManaBaseCrafter, but I want something that is playable, relatively inexpensive, and can win me games at my lgs. All the pepole I play with know I am new, they are helping me learn, but I feel like a lot of the time with Edgar I am just not learning anythig, that is why I want to build my own budget build until I get the Sultai running. Like I said, the lgs is not cEDH, but everyone absolutely plays to win but it's by far and large social and fun.
If I can win with mill, I would go mill. If it's not viable, then I need other competitive options (competitive meaning I can actually win with it).
I actually know why the opinion on mill differs so much.
A mill deck to mill all 100 cards from every player takes infinite mana. And effecient reliable infinite mana means u have to build a competative edh deck. Most people play somewhat casual edh. In more casual edh peoppe play actual mill cards that arent infinite. So its unrealistic to deck everyone out. So yes a mill deck is viable, but you will need a tier 1 deck.
March 10, 2019 8:01 a.m.
I disagree with Vman, I think you could build a fairly competitive mill deck for EDH without it needing to be a cEDH deck. There are a lot of ways to make infinite mana if you want to, but if your are limited by budget, try working a mill shell with a lot of control support. Phenax, God of Deception is definitely the way to go, as it alone makes all your creatures into mill effects. If you run a lot of walls, you could also look at things like Propaganda , Koskun Falls , Crawlspace and Collective Restraint , so yu protect yourself. Black has a lot of wipes, run at least 5-7 of those to keep the board clear, plus the usual suite of counter spells. There's nothing wrong with running a few infinite combos like Hinder / Spell Crumple + Tunnel Vision . The last recommendation is run some effects like Leyline of the Void that cause milled cards to be exiled, as that will keep people running things like eldrazi titans from just reshuffling every few turns.
Steaditup says... #2
Dimir is kind of an oddball. Scarab God is by far one of the best choices for dimir commanders. You don't even need to play that many zombies to make him good.
You could also play Lazav, Dimir Mastermind and use mill not as a win condition, but as a way to activate your commander. He also makes counterspells and creature removal way more relevant, since he can become anything you counter or kill.
If you're dead set on mill, Phenax, God of Deception might be your strongest bet. You can run Eater of the Dead to go infinite, and as long as you're using global mill effects like Psychic Corrosion , Mind Grind , Consuming Aberration and wheels like Windfall and Whispering Madness can go well with your high-toughness creatures (such as the oft-maligned and very inexpensive Tree of Perdition ).
I'm afraid mill decks will never be "competitive" but they are absolutely capable of winning.
March 10, 2019 4:45 a.m.