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.

Discussion (44)

Ammonzy on The Thrill to Mill [Modern UB Mill]

1 month ago

zapyourtumor

I have never had issues with the x4 FoR since they mana fix as long as you get 3 total lands to activate it. Also I find being able to force my opponent extremely important in order to free cast Archive Trap. I used to run Ashiok, Dream Render in the sideboard which complimented very well too, obviously she isnt in the SB at the moment but it's a card thats always on my mind.

I did take your advice on removing x1 Torpor Orb for a Crypt Incursion. I believe Dress Down is better than TO in this current meta as it allows you to make your opponent waste their ETBs rather than TO staying on the board, hoping they dont remove it.

abbatromebone on Help with my landfall deck

1 month ago

1) fetchlands dont have to grab basics they can grab shock lands like Breeding Pool 2) you have a way to get artifacts from the graveyard to the battlefield so I would recommend crucible of worlds. 3) have you considered Ghost Quarter + Archive Trap as part of your deck? Its pretty good. or Field of Ruin 4) generally good cards in this deck to think about Visions of Beyond Fractured Sanity Tasha's Hideous Laughter Into the Story Oboro, Palace in the Clouds Shelldock Isle

wallisface on Mill help!

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

• Modern is a very fast format, and on-top of that Mill decks need to be fast to have any hope of winning the game. High mana cards like Consuming Aberration and Haunting Echoes are just too clumsy and slow to be able to perform well, you need to aim for lower cmc cards. Mill should be aiming to have won the game by turn 5.

• in a similar bucket, Duskmantle Guildmage is just too slow for Mill, in that it isn't actually helpful at all outside of one particular janky combo with Mindcrank (and that's an entirely different deck). Similarly, Shadowmage Infiltrator just doesn't cut it in that the soonest it'll be giving you a card is turn 4, and drawing a single card for 3 mana at the end of the game normally isn't worth it. The only good Mill-creatures worth playing are Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab.

• The 2x Crypt Incursion should be mainboard, and you should be looking to run around 22 lands.

• You have a lot of other very slow spells for Mill, all of Isochron Scepter, Trepanation Blade, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver just don't do enough work, and won't win you the game fast enough. Similarly, Mind Funeral and Fraying Sanity are generally considered "bad" Mill spells - Mind Funeral generally doesn't get enough cards for its mana cost, and Fraying Sanity usually won't mill more than a single Mill spell anyway (and drawing the second copy usually means we lose).

• Maddening Cacophony is a great Mill spell. Other spells you should look to consider alongside it would be Fractured Sanity, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, and Archive Trap.

• You should really be looking to add a playset of killspells to buy you a turn or two. Fatal Push is the normal go-to. There's also Drown in the Loch which can work very well.

I'm not sure what your budget it, but here is an example of a top-end, well-tuned Mill deck, for comparison.

wallisface on Dimir Control Mill

3 months ago

RyuSama420 Nor does Snapcaster. I'm saying that if the opponent has searched their library, then you can use Mission Briefing to cast Archive Trap from your graveyard for it's alternate cost of 0. The way Snapcaster Mage is worded, you always have to pay the regular cost of 5cmc to cast Archive Trap from the graveyard (whether they've searched their library or not), so the two cards don't play as well together. This is why Mission Briefing is the better option in mill decks.

wallisface on Dimir Control Mill

3 months ago

Some thoughts:

• Crypt Incursion and Extirpate don’t play well with Dauthi Voidwalker at all - and i’m not actually sure what purpose you’re expecting the Voidwalker to actually fill here. Voidwalker feels like a sideboard card at best tbh.

• Mission Briefing is better than Snapcaster Mage in mill decks, because Briefing lets you cast Archive Trap for its alternative cost of 0, whereas with Snappy you’d always be stuck paying full-price.

• personally, i think you need one more playset of a mill-spell to be able to effectively mill out your opponent.

• I also think 19 lands is faaar too low, especially when you need them for the crabs to operate. With your quantity of 3-drops alone, i’d think 23ish lands would suit better

Caerwyn on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

4 months ago

Your deck is missing 3x Field of Ruin. Field is an incredibly powerful card in Mill--it forces them to search their library allowing you to enable Archive Trap (while also getting some crab triggers). Along with that change I would cut Counterspell and move Archive Trap to the mainboard.

You also have too few fetch lands for 8-Crab to really shine, and that is probably a large part of why you feel the deck moves a bit slower than you would like. That is one of the downsides to the current mill deck--you really need to spend a lot on fetches to get it to sing.

StoryArcher on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

4 months ago

Morning, all :)

I've been playing around with Dimir mill in the Modern format, buoyed in part by the excellent Drown in the Loch. At the moment I'm looking at two approaches; the first is a sort of 'suicide mill' where the focus is less on interaction and more on running them out at all costs. At the moment I just can't seem to get it fast enough, so it's the weaker option.

The second, and the one I'm asking for help with, is a more meta-mill sort of deck, leaning on tempo and control while gradually milling. This deck will have a lot more interaction, including a number of creatures and would be as likely to win through damage as forcing the last draw.

For this deck concept I can't get it out of my head that Dauthi Voidwalker doesn't present a load of interesting opportunities, with cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable and Maddening Cacophony dumping tons of cards into what would be the graveyard. The Voidwalker is actually massively problematic in its synergy (or lack thereof) with many traditional mill cards as it keeps those cards from going into the graveyard and therefor often leaving options like Jace's Phantasm and Visions of Beyond depowered. Still, I can't help but think it has some potential, and there are plenty of match-ups where exiling cards is preferred to sending them into the graveyard.

Has anyone tried to used the Voidwalker in this way? Is it a fool's errand to even try in a competitive deck? Are there any good examples of a more controller-y Dimir mill deck that anyone would like to offer? I'd really like to try to make this competitive and most of my past experience with milling is mono-red land destruction that denies land draws via Grindclock or Codex Shredder + Lantern of Insight.

I did play an earlier version of this deck once in a local tournament and have one of my favorite 'Magic moments' ever - watching my opponent sac a fetch land on the opening play and in response popping an Archive Trap and then a Surgical Extraction, absolutely wrecking his combo deck and watching him scoop before I had even gotten a chance to play my turn. Ever since then I've wanted to make a serious go at this.

Thanks in advance.

wallisface on Competitive Dimir Mill

4 months ago

Reynan - Mission Briefing is better than Snapcaster Mage in mill, because the way Briefing is worded, you can cast Archive Trap for its alternate cost of 0. Whereas with Snapcaster, you’d be forced to pay the full cost of 5 to cast that spell.