Darkness

Instant

Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.

Discussion (51)

rubeerubin on Competitive Modern Mill

1 week ago

Mission Briefing instead of Breaking seems like an improvement. Remember that you can pay the alternative cost to Archive Trap , which is probably the best mill card in the deck. Having the ability to do it twice on one turn is a back breaker. It's also 4x more Darkness . And obvious flexibility later in the game ( Mind Funeral might close out a late game better, for example).

But it's also another 4x Surgical Extraction after sideboard, which is huge. 2 out of 3 games uses the sideboard, don't forget. And speaking of sideboard, it gives you 4x copies of every single card in your sideboard.

Oh and don't forget the Surveil. If it wasn't good enough already, the ability to bubble up another mill card is huge (or that desperately needed land), or Darkness .

There are also the games where you need to draw 3 with Visions of Beyond and your graveyard is closer to 20 than your opponent's.

Nemesis on modern mill

3 weeks ago

Hey there! Have you considered Visions of Beyond and Darkness ? Visions is great for drawing more fuel and darkness can save your life.

Peisistratos on Competitive Modern Mill

3 weeks ago

AtraxaIsBae That would be nice if it hadn't some unfortunate implications. Let's analyse such build, switching Darkness for Surgical Extraction in order to understand if at least our best case scenario build works out.

If we play Scheming Symmetry , we cannot play Mesmeric Orb . That's a fact. We cannot spend a whole card just to cast an otherwise useless card: at least Field of Ruin gives mana. So acting as Scheming Symmetry enablers we have: Hedron Crab , which however acts as such only from turn 3, because if start with Hedron Crab we usually open up the game with Shelldock Isle , Island or Prismatic Vista for Island , so that we'll get only on turn 2 and Hedron Crab as an enabler only as early as turn 3. Then we get our 2 mana millers, yet they can be coupled with Scheming Symmetry only from turn 3 on. Finally from turn 4 we get Mind Funeral and Field of Ruin , but that's too late. If we adopt surgical extraction, we can probably enable
Scheming Symmetry as early as turn 2 - but it would be as we mulliganed to 5 cards, since we spend 2 whole cards that don't advance our game plan only to put on top a usually replaceable cards. And fogging for 2 mana is not worth it because it's too expensive.

wallisface on Competitive Modern Mill

3 weeks ago

.... ok so good work on ignoring completely the link of competitive mill players who probably know better, and a great effort on twisting my words to justify running some cards (i’m including Darkness as well here) that no other established mill decks do.

Your confidence would be more believable if the deck were putting up solid win results - however in your own description you imply it isn’t. But it appears all you’re after for here is for an echo-chamber, and writing a small-novel to solidify/reinforce questionable choices.

Peisistratos on Competitive Modern Mill

3 weeks ago

wallisface It surely isn't my intention to be rude or hurt someone's feelings.

"The problem with the second copy is that you'll be casting that on turn 4 (after using all of T3 to cast the first), at a time which is already a precarious position for mill - you either want to be winning on turn 4, or else preventing your opponent from being able to close out the game - being able to accomplish either of those usually puts mill in a very strong spot." This is exactly (or nearly so, actually) what I am trying to say along the wholeness of my article. That's what fogs are meant for: allowing you to unfold your bad development in that game (e.g. we are not winning on turn 4, but merely casting another Fraying Sanity ) by giving you an high probability of gaining another turn after that one. Against combo the games develops in an utterly different way, against control we have no issue at reaching later turns of the games and against grindy decks you win mostly by means of redundancy, not by cute defence cards like Fatal Push or Crypt Incursion (even if we often swap them in for Darkness with in all honestly a similar result).

I felt free to adapt part of your comment to implement my Fraying Sanity entry. Thanks a lot for that.

Peisistratos on Competitive Modern Mill

4 weeks ago

hungry000 have you tried reading some lines of this page at all? Casting a 3 mana Darkness is worthless under any circumstances (see the entries about Darkness , Crypt Incursion and Snapcaster Mage ). As for an analysis of Mission Briefing itself, there is an apposite entry.

hungry000 on Competitive Modern Mill

4 weeks ago

Have you tried playing Mission Briefing at all? It can flashback mill spells (including Archive Trap ) and Darkness as well.

Peisistratos on Competitive Modern Mill

1 month ago

zga sure! I'm currently on the following guidelines. However, be aware of your opponent game biases (aggressive, controlling..). This is more relevant to sideborading than you might think.

Burn: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push +1 Set Adrift . But really, side as you want. You can't win even sideboarding 15 dedicated cards. I tested the matchup extensively with any possible combination of cards.

Infect: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Breaking +4 Fatal Push +4 Set Adrift . Still the matchup is desperate, don't hope to win even a single game.

Hatebears, Humans, Spirits: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push +1 Set Adrift . Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Unsettled Mariner are Public Enemies Number One. We can usually play around the rest, nonetheless those matchups are really really hard.

Jund: -4 Darkness -1 Field of Ruin +4 Fatal Push +1 Crypt Incursion . The matchup is hard, there is no question their cards are better than ours. After thoroughly testing it, I can surmise their only ways of winning quite always involve an early unanswered Tarmogoyf , a rain of discard spells followed by a Tarmogoyf , or that same stream of discard spells followed by us flooding out. Crypt Incursion seems strong at a first glance, but we are usually forced to cast it too early because of the pressure imposed by Liliana of the Veil or Scavenging Ooze . What's left of their deck is often quite irrelevant (feel free to swear at me, Jund players of the world: it's the truth, against Mill your other cards are too much situational).

Death's Shadow: no changes. The matchup surely is difficult, but not one that we cannot emerge victorious from.

Eldrazi Tron: -4 Darkness +3 Crypt Incursion +1 Set Adrift . The matchup is quite even. If we manage to stem a chancely aggressive start, we should race Karn, the Great Creator .

Hardened Scales: -3 Fraying Sanity -4 Visions of Beyond +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Fatal Push . Just time your Darkness correctly and win on top of it as the plan wisely prescribes. The matchup is probably played on equal terms as for winning odds.

Dredge: -4 Breaking -3 Fraying Sanity +3 Crypt Incursion +4 Surgical Extraction . We cannot win game 1 because of Creeping Chill . If you manage to insulate yourself from it, game 2-3 become fairly easy. Just wait for them to mill themselves or lose time while you set youself up.

Storm: -4 Fraying Sanity +4 Surgical Extraction . You cannot win game 1, but game 2-3 if you manage to extract Past in Flames with the aim of fogging Empty the Warrens the game becomes pretty straightforward.

Urza: -4 Fraying Sanity -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction +4 Set Adrift . Game 1 revolves around them playing Urza, Lord High Artificer in time, game 2-3 are pretty easy for us. Set Adrift is not really needed, but so are so many card advantage sources: we play it just in case we can sneak it in to delay them mostly out of sadicity.

Control: -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction . Just get rid of their counterspell or Snapcaster Mage 's targets. If they are going nuts with too many copies of Teferi, Time Raveler , Narset, Parter of Veils or Gideon of the Trials , add some copies of Set Adrift for Mind Funeral s in quantity depending on their mix of those spells. Narset, Parter of Veils nerfs down Visions of Beyond , Teferi, Time Raveler completely neuters Shelldock Isle and Gideon of the Trials wins by itself making ourselves uncapable of winning. Just ignore anything else. The matchup goes to unlosable to unwinnable depending on their list.

Tron: -4 Darkness +4 Surgical Extraction . Game 1 is pretty easy for us, and post board they can hardly win any game.

Valakut: -4 Darkness +4 Set Adrift just for show. They really cannot beat us.

Amulet: -4 Darkness +4 Set Adrift . They usually cannot assemble the whole combo (haste+double attack) because we're milling them, so we just need to get rid of Leyline of Sanctity in game 2-3 and win before they do.