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.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (43)

wallisface on crab rave

3 weeks ago

Pact of Negation feels very dubious when you’ll be very unlikely to ever have the mana to pay for it.

Memory Deluge feels super slow/clumsy here. Not sure i’m a fan of Archmage's Charm either, as you’ll often be wanting to cast some kind of massive mill spell once you reach 3 lands.

Most mill decks run a playset of Field of Ruin to both trigger their crabs and force Archive Trap being castable.

nbarry223 on Shifty Crabs!

1 month ago

Well, if you were going a third color, the obvious choice is {B}. Drown in the Loch is so powerful in a mill deck as a denial card, as it can counter a threat or be removal, and it scales, all for 2 mana. {B} also has a lot of gravehate options, many of which gain life, so they help against both aggro and graveyard oriented decks, which may help to free up some slots in the sideboard, by consolidating your hate a bit.

Jace, the Perfected Mind is also a pretty powerful potential tool if able to be enabled, main enabler is usually Archive Trap (would suggest Field of Ruin if you went that route). Tasha's Hideous Laughter is another option if just going for the mill since most modern decks are very low curves.

I'm also a little surprised you don't have much in the way of gravehate in your sideboard. What do you do against decks where your mill strategy enables them? Bojuka Bog and Grafdigger's Cage just seem suboptimal. If removing threats already in the graveyard, I'd consider something like Surgical Extraction or Ashiok, Dream Render. If doing something preventative, replacement effects are the way to go instead of narrow denial strategies like Grafdigger's Cage since a lot of strategies like Living End get around it. Dauthi Voidwalker or Rest in Peace are the two main cards that come to mind. Honestly though, I think your best option in your current colors is Relic of Progenitus, since it lets you slowly chip away at graveyard strategies or is a cantrip that can be used in response to their graveyard strategy.

wallisface on

1 month ago

jbump75 Field of Ruin us a must in almost all mill decks, as it ensures you can use Archive Trap if your opponent is being cagey, and also all-but-guarantees the free-win versus Tron (not that that matchup is hard, but still).

wallisface on Blue/black mill

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

• It looks like you're currently trying to do 3 different things here: mill your opponent out, combo-off, and deal them 20 damage. This is just going to weaken your overall gameplan because whichever way to try to win, only half of the cards you draw are going to help with that. I would suggest you reorganize the deck to be entirely-focused on the mill plan, entirely focused on the Duskmantle Guildmage combo, or entirely focused on the beatdown plan.

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If you're wanting to build a Mill Deck:

• There are no creatures at all worth running except for Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab. Nothing else is even remotely worth the effort of running, because nothing else really helps with the goal of milling your opponent.

• Also something to be aware of, is that you need any card that is milling to get at least 8 cards from your opponents deck (try to compare mill spells as burn spell, except you need to do 53 damage instead of 20 - so the same way that burn can never justify running Shock, mill can never justify running Tome Scour). Any less than this, and you just end up empty-handed with your opponent still alive. So I would suggest ditching Mind Grind, Tome Scour, Traumatize, both the planeswalkers, and your artifacts. I would also say to get rid of Fraying Sanity because that card is just bad. Instead look to add things like Fractured Sanity, Maddening Cacophony and Archive Trap.

• You'll want a decent amount of interaction in the form of Surgical Extraction and Fatal Push, as well as Drown in the Loch. Crypt Incursion is also great to keep yourself alive longer

• An example deck of how this looks here

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If you're wanting to build a Combo Deck:

• you'll want to up your copies of Mindcrank to a full playset. You also want ways to fetch both your combo pieces in the way of cards like Dimir Infiltrator and Muddle the Mixture, as well as draw spells like Consider or Serum Visions.

• Duskmantle Guildmage is the only real creature you need to run, though its worth also considering Spellskite as a way to protect your combo pieces, and Vendilion Clique as either a way to fix your own hand, or mess with your opponents.

• Your other cards should mainly be focused on ensuring your opponent can't disrupt what you're doing. Spell Pierce and Counterspell will be great here, as well as proactive cards like Inquisition of Kozilek. Because you only really want to slow your opponent down, stuff like Vapor Snag can be decent too (note this card can also start the combo triggering once you have the pieces in play).

• A budget dechtech example with description, list & video this deck here

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If you're wanting to build a Creature-beatdown Deck:

• You probably don't want to be doing much milling at all, or at least you don't want to be running any cards that only mill. The most practical route to go down is probably using Rogues, with cards like Thieves' Guild Enforcer and Soaring Thought-Thief.

• A budget dechtech example with description, list & video this deck here

wallisface on B/U Land Mill

1 month ago

This isn’t too far off competitive mill decks, and i think it should fare fairly well tbh. Here’s some thoughts for improvements though:

• 20 lands is pretty low, especially when you benefit from them so much with the crabs. I’d say 22 lands is generally a more optimal count for Mill.

• You probably want a playset of Field of Ruin as part of your land base. It can help get more crab triggers, and forces your opponent to search so lets you Archive Trap them.

• Devour in Shadow feels like a really odd choice as its going to hurt you an unreasonable amount (and the double-black casting cost is rough too). I’d suggest Infernal Grasp as a strict upgrade, though also Fatal Push should just serve you better in almost all situations anyway.

Balaam__ on

2 months ago

I’d replace Scheming Symmetry with Tasha's Hideous Laughter. It procs Archive Trap yes, but your opponent will likely have plenty of fetchlands to accomplish that already. THL is a must play in the archetype, particularly in Modern where there are countless high impact, highly played cards with ultra low CMC’s (Ragavan, Thoughtseize etc).

fatti97 on Competitive Modern Mill - Spite your Friends <3

2 months ago

Archive Trap might be worth a spot in the sideboard for fetch-heavy match ups or even outright replace Startled Awake  ^Flip for instant speed utility and a solid shot at a free cast at least once per game.

TypicalTimmy on Card creation challenge

3 months ago

I spent the past 15 minutes sifting through Google to figure out what the heck an "onion card" is for MTG and had no results. Then I remembered the satire news site The Onion News Network and went to Urban Dictionary, which described an Onion as a "woman with too many layers".

I'm assuming by "onion", you mean an overly convoluted card? With, level up?

Right on because that's what you're getting.

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Knights of Night {4}{B}

{W} Creature - Human Vampire Soldier Knight

Level Up Pay 2 life (3/4)

1-2 Flanking, Nightbound (3/4)

2-5 Flanking, banding (4/5)

6 Flanking, banding, melee (5/6)

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If that hurts your eyeballs, good.

And yes, mono-black casting cost with a mono-white indicator. Because heck. Why wouldn't you want to pay 5 mana and 12 life for a 5/6 that makes combat about as fun as studying for a math exam?

And if I didn't hit the mark enough, here's an errata that I'll throw on before submission. Nightbound on Lvl 1 & 2 but nothing else. Why? Because heck you that's why. Figure it out.

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We make a ton of cards in this forum for Commander, almost exclusively it would seem nowadays.

Make a card for legacy. Must be playable. Can't have a mana value of {0}, but you can certainly have built in cost-reductions such as Archive Trap, or have an alternative utility such as how if you pay close attention, Simian Spirit Guide can actually be played as a 2/2 creature.