I cannot decide on a Commander as a new player and I am disheartened - Dimir
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 9, 2019, 11:47 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/ (the maybeboard is my smaller list of available upgrades) - 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't go cheap and do what I want then it is whatever, I will just wait until I can fund the Sultai and play then. And if Dimir is fine and mill is not then I am open to suggestions on what to play based on cost and competitiveness.
Honestly mill does work IF you run it in different ways.
That could mean using tricks like Memory Plunder or other such things to capitalize what ends up in opponents graveyards or you could use it in a force-feed kind of way to make it so that the playing field is equal for all players and screw over anyone trying to get ahead.
If you want a tip about Dimir mill, sometimes it helps to diversify past traditional "mill out your opponents to win" decks. Generally part of what makes edh fun and interesting isn't just that you're playing against multiple people, but that your deck being one hundred different cards allow for multiple strategies that intertwine with each other.
The other, bigger piece of advice I have is just play what you want. Who gives a flying f*** what other players are playing or which decks it helps or whatever. You wanna play trad mill, you play trad mill. Just make a deck and play it my dude.
March 10, 2019 3:05 a.m.
Dredge4life says... #4
I think Sultai is pretty achievable on a budget, so I don’t think you even really have to bother with Dimir if you don’t want to. I built this budget Muldrotha deck a while ago. Budget Muldrotha Massacre
It’s got a lot of tap lands, but it’s definitely able to get off the ground and do some work. I built it around Primal Surge, but you can definitely go the self-mill route if that’s more your jam. What types of decks are found in your playgroup? Is everybody running original dual lands, or is it more budget oriented?
March 10, 2019 12:10 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #5
So, I have been a player for a bit under a decade- I'm a senior in high school so that's half of my life. I have been playing seriously since around 2013.
In 2013, I, too, was introduced to the commander format with a precon; Marath, Will of the Wild 's Nature of the Beast. I didn't really know the rules, though, until 2014.
Since I met tappedout in 2016, I have brewed probably 200 commander decks. It is hands-down my favorite format and I (clearly) have a lot of passion for it.
But the funniest thing is, my very ... not first but second modern deck was mill. And now it's one of my favorite commander decks. Here is my brew, if you'd like to take some inspiration. While it's actually built around attack-based triggers, it's got a lot of mill and spelljacking elements. You could add some mill back in- I'd be more than happy to point you to some of my favorite mill cards that didn't make it.
Don't be intimidated by the price tag, 100$ of it is spent on four cards, and three of those cards are lands. Excluding some of the more expensive cards (anything over 10 or 15$), and assuming you have 0% of the deck, you can probably build this boi for like 75$.
Sygg, Cipher Payoff
Commander / EDH
23 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS
March 10, 2019 12:56 p.m.
Wolfsbane706 says... #6
If you're still interested in running mill, cards that effect every opponent are your friend. Also, Phenax, God of Deception and Consuming Aberration are your best friends. Combine Aberration with Aqueous Form for those moments when there's Eldrazi in the equation, as the other players don't lose by deckout until their turn happens (barring "tactical scooping" being a thing in your playgroup).
March 10, 2019 1:39 p.m.
LordBlackblade says... #7
If you really wanna play mill, one of the best performing mill decks that a friend of mine played used Lazav, Dimir Mastermind as its commander. His deck was more of a clone/steal using Lazav and reanimation cards. Lemme tell you, Lazav copying an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre ended more than a couple of games. The best part of it was that being clone/steal it was scalable to any meta it played in.
March 11, 2019 1:04 a.m.
DAWT_PLAWT says... #8
I’ve been messing with my own The Scarab God list for a few months now, and while not a dedicated mill commander, it’s survivability and activated ability can pull me out of games where I should have lost. However, if he’s not your style, I’d reocommend Oona, Queen of the Fae
March 11, 2019 10:12 a.m.
CastleSiege says... #9
Honestly, if you want to win with "mill" you should play Oona, Queen of the Fae . Her ability mills your opponents into exile rather than the graveyard, so it's easier to win if your opponent is playing any of the original eldrazi titans. And there's a million and a half ways to generate infinite mana so you can win with her pretty reliably.
DrukenReaps says... #2
People are not exactly wrong when they say mill is a hard way to win the game but neither are they exactly correct. Once you start milling people you will be helping the graveyard decks, you will have to be able to exile titans like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth , and it just has very little effect on the actual state of the game.
If however you use mill to get your own win cons it works great. You can do this by either self-mill or by using cards that steal from your opponents. I had The Mimeoplasm and often milled everyone and used the biggest creature and best abilities to one shot with him. If that didn't work people would die to effects like Bloodchief Ascension or the dimir guildmage guy thing dude that does basically the same thing.
If you are open to infinite combos those are highly recommended for doing mill in EDH.
This is a good starting point:
https://edhrec.com/commanders/the-mimeoplasm-mill-theme
March 10, 2019 12:44 a.m.