Archive Trap
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Vintage Legal

Archive Trap

Instant — Trap

If an opponent searched his or her library this turn, you may pay {{0}} rather than pay Archive Trap's mana cost.

Target opponent puts the top thirteen cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

DreadKhan on unthinkable apocalypse

4 days ago

I'm not certain the Commander has enough explosive power to consistently win vs 2 decks, but I have very good results in 1 v 1 with my Rakdos deck, and it often has spare cards by the end of the game, be it wipe or removal, because the deck just runs so much of those, with lots of the removal hitting more than 1 target (I love stuff like Phyrexian Purge, Fire Covenant, Make an Example, and Volcanic Offering can each be a terror of a card, and a deck running all of them has lots of pinpoint removal that will clear lots of stuff out. Ashes to Ashes and Reckless Spite also exist fwiw, and if you aren't certain you'll have creatures out, Tergrid's Shadow can do a bit of work, as can Plaguecrafter or Demon's Disciple, cards Sedris can recur for 2B even. Another value card is Dredge the Mire, which can cheat in the 3 worst creatures in people's graveyards, note certain creatures will kill you if you control them, so check before playing! Necromantic Selection not only clears the field, it also gives you back the best thing, this is extra juicy if you use some sort of Indestructible creature(s) that won't die. If you consistently have a fairly big creature, or one with Deathtouch and Lifelink, Chandra's Ignition is one sided by definition, one of many cards that shines brightly with Basilisk Collar (which is also very good with Jaya Ballard, Task Mage or even good old Banshee, Jaya's 6 damage wipe really is amazing if you've got Collar on her, though it'll kill her too). If you expect to have multiple opponents, Goad is a very strong effect, Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant is potentially pretty solid, lots of card draw. There is also Kardur, Doomscourge that will force everyone's hand. Spectacular Showdown is a great card if you've actually got a board of your own to finish people off, keep in mind that on your next turn, you not only won't have been attacked by any pre-existing creature, everyone else will have swung for the fences with Double Strike, and they will likely have nothing left to defend with, making your Double Strikers very effective. Another Goad source that is great with a creature heavy board is Agitator Ant, which is hilarious a lot of the time. If you're using Goad effects, War Tax can let an opponent have a way around them, if there is a tax to attack Goad fails, and War Cadence is absolutely devastating with Goad, even a tax of 1 to block can make blocking impossible for weenie decks, and you can use either on anyone's turn.

As you've got access to Blue, there are a few non-Rakdos tricks you can use, the most hilarious I know of is Mass Diminish, note that it lasts until your next turn and have a good laugh. There is also Sudden Spoiling, which is powerful but lasts for that turn, or Polymorphist's Jest, which is similarly a 1 turn solution. I use Mass Diminish more aggressively, to make a player hyper-vulnerable to attackers (and make them unable to counter attack), getting two casts is just savage. Visions of Duplicity can create some chaos with it's two casts, Cultural Exchange is obscene if someone else has better creatures. Bident of Thassa is glorious if you want both of it's effects, forcing people to attack is incredibly mean, and this doesn't require you to run a weenie like Goblin Diplomats, but that's also a fun card fwiw. If you're going to run Oriq Loremage, you might slip in a huge creature to Unearth, something like Dragon Tyrant can be huge and not break the bank, Double Strike and Firebreathing are really good together, and you won't have to pay the upkeep with Unearth, he's dead before that matters.

I was looking at your land count and average Mana Value and I think you probably are running too few lands at this point, it's very tempting to cut them, but 30 is probably too few for a MV that is over 2.5. You might get away with adding 2 mana ramp, but I'd still aim for at least 36 lands (or MDFCs that count as a land, you probably already have the best two MDFCs in those colours, but people also run Malakir Rebirth  Flip) to ensure you can consistently cast stuff. There is a smattering of ways you can run less lands/ramp, but these all come with downsides, but in Grixis you can run 4 solid Bounce Lands, Dimir Aqueduct and Guildless Commons should be in here as well if you want a lower land count, these let you hit another land drop when you draw them. You might also run stuff like Thran Dynamo or Worn Powerstone to help you hit higher MVs sooner, ramping by only 1 mana feels bad compared to hitting a land drop most of the time, there is also Gilded Lotus, but hitting 5 mana can be rough. Coalition Relic can charge for 1 turn, Skyclave Relic is super versatile/rugged, and Everflowing Chalice can be huge if you want, 6-10 mana is absurd but sometimes comes up. Cantrips like Ponder and Preordain are also good at digging for a land, but I know in Talrand it stings pretty bad when you Preordain and don't find a land and I needed one. As for some cards to remove, I'll take a look, but if I'm trying to build a deck that can handle attention, I look first at cards that will hurt only 1 player, unless that card will almost certainly end that player, either right away or in a few turns.

A few to consider removing (I may be missing why you have them in, so user discretion is advised or something): Archive Trap, Outpost Siege, Palace Siege, Ponder, Preordain, Haunting Echoes, Cruel Ultimatum (this seems insanely hard to cast, and hits only 1 player, unless you can copy it I'd run Captive Audience if I want to hose one player hard), Cranial Extraction, Cormela, Glamour Thief, Kess, Dissident Mage, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Lobber Crew, Loyal Subordinate, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Obeka, Brute Chronologist, Phenax, God of Deception, Runo Stromkirk  Flip, Spear Spewer, and Thermo-Alchemist.Some maybe cards include Angrath, Captain of Chaos, and Cryptolith Fragment  Flip (for another land, maybe a better rock, there is Thought Vessel, but fixing is sweet in Grixis).

Hope some of this is helpful!

Caerwyn on Fun opponent mill deck

4 weeks ago

Mill is a fairly established archetype, with a long history in Modern. It struggles in a number of regards due to effectively being a slower version of burn (it plays a lot like burn, albeit they have 60 "health" instead of 20).

The bread and butter of Mill is fairly expensive--you run 4x Ruin Crab, 4x Hedron Crab, then toss some fetch lands (like Polluted Delta) to double up on your crab triggers. Given how fast Modern is, it can be really hard for Mill to excel if you do not fully commit to the 8-Crab strategy.

Even if you are not running Fetch lands, you should still run the full 8 crabs.

You'll also likely want to change to Black and Blue instead of Mono-Black, which gives you access to the excellent Drown in the Loch and removal in the form of Fatal Push. Your deck as it stands is really light on removal, which is not going to get you far in Modern.

For some smaller changes:

  • Replace Serum Visions with the vastly better for this deck Visions of Beyond.
  • Traumatize is too much mana for what it does. Instead run Archive Trap and Field of Ruin to force opponents to search their library (they'll probably be doing it with fetch lands anyway, but will be wary once they see you are running mill, so the forced search is a great way to get some big, free mill spells fired off).
  • Glimpse the Unthinkable is a very efficient if you switch over to to Black/Blue--and those extra three cards make a huge difference over the inferior Mind Sculpt.

You'll also need to think about a sideboard if you want to be competitive in Modern, with answers tailored to your particular meta (or at least the most common decks you are most likely to see at any given meta).

wallisface on Grave Eater

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

  • Mill decks don’t really want to be playing any creatures at all, except for Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab. The reason for this is that there is no point in attacking your opponents life total - it just means you’re doing 2 things at once badly, and will fail to accomplish either. Focus on milling and ditch all those non-crab creatures.

  • Shared Trauma feels really bad because for 3 mana you’re only milling 2 cards. This is possibly the weakest mill card there is.

  • I’d suggest ditching all of your enchants. Chronic Flooding is slow and too easy to play-around. Curse of the Bloody Tome is super slow. Fraying Sanity sounds good in-text, but in practice is almost always not worth it.

  • Archive Trap is great and you should prolly be running the playset - but you should get Field of Ruin to play alongside it to force the search (as well as help the crabs).

  • You currently have no interaction, which is a really bad place to be as Mill can’t reliably race faster decks. I’d suggest finding room for Fatal Push, Drown in the Loch, Surgical Extraction.

To help with your brewing, an example of my competitive mill deck is here

wallisface on Mill,mill and mill....

1 month ago

It feels like this list should be far more optimised than it is, considering the $$$ investment. Some thoughts:

I have my own competitive mill deck here which may help inspire you.

wallisface on Modern Mill-Castic

5 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • the bare minimum you want a mill-card to mill is 8 cards. Any lower and it starts becoming not-worth the resource (card) loss. I’d suggest ditching all of Mind Funeral, Mind Sculpt, and Tome Scour. There are much better options in Maddening Cacophony, Fractured Sanity, and either Archive Trap, Mesmeric Orb or Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

  • Mill decks typically only want to run Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab as their creatures. Other creatures often slow them down more than help them. I would also suggest investing in some fetchlands to double the crab-triggers.

  • your land count feels really low and i personally think 22 might be a better number.

  • Fraying Sanity is a bit of a trap card, in that the first copy is usually only as-good as drawing a single mill spell, and drawing a second copy is usually disastrous - because they do nothing on their own. I could see justifying running a single copy of this card, but never more than that (and really, i’d suggest ditching it).

  • if you end up using Archive Trap, then you’ll want to run Mission Briefing instead of Snapcaster. I’d also suggest running Field of Ruin to both force a search, and help your crabs.

  • I think you need some more interaction, namely Fatal Push and/or Drown in the Loch to help keep the board safe. A few copies of Crypt Incursion would do wonders also

wallisface on Gretchen's Crab Trap

5 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • its worth noting that Ghost Quarter lets the opponent choose whether they search or not, so doesn’t reliably work with Archive Trap. Field of Ruin works much better as its a forced search.

  • Your current list looks like an amalgamation of traditional-mill fused with prime-titan. My worries are that you’ve created something that won’t be as effective at either particular strategy, and maybe it would be better to stick to one of those option? Typical Titan decks look like this, and typical mill decks look like this.

  • My main concern with your current Titan strategy is that it looks really slow. You don’t really have much outside of Growth Spiral for early game ramp, which means Titan itself is likely going to come down quite late.

  • My main concern with your current Mill strategy is that its also really slow, as you have very few mill options. Mill decks typically also pack a load of interaction to make sure they can survive long enough to get the job done, which you’re also lacking.

  • outside of those two archetypes, there’s also some cards i think you should just ditch regardless of your gameplan. Muldrotha, the Gravetide feels really weak for its mana cost. Gretchen Titchwillow takes too long to do anything. Endurance seems to play against most of what you’re trying to do 1. (either to your own graveyard, or your opponents deck). Bojuka Bog is clumsy and not really helpful

Bulldawg1310 on

6 months ago

Archive Trap

wallisface on Mission Briefing

7 months ago

As others have mentioned, Briefing does have some limited upsides over Snappy (mainly in casting cards for their alternate costs, like Archive Trap - something snappy can’t do. Always pick Briefing over Snappy in mill!).

Snappy does more than just cast a spell - it’s also presenting a blocker in a push, or ideally a clock to slowly smack your opponent to death with. Briefing on the other hand can only ever represent a spell - there’s no other added value.

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