Glacial Grasp

Instant

Tap target creature. Its controller mills two cards. That creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step. (They put the top two cards of their library into their graveyard.)

Draw a card.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (5)

RDWDTR on General Mills

2 years ago

• Ruin Crab loses a lot of its punch without Hedron Crab and fetch lands backing it up. It's still worth the playset but I just thought I'd let you in on this since the other guy didn't. The optimal version of this deck is heavily based around running both crabs with fetches (it also typically runs a second color, either white or black). You could try Evolving Wilds and/or Terramorphic Expanse to mimic this, but you're going to really slow the deck down. The optimal version is also heavily based around an expensive card called Archive Trap. Something like Sphinx's Tutelage could help fill this void.

• Glacial Grasp, Thought Collapse and Vedalken Entrancer are terrible cards, you don't want them in your deck, trust me. I'd mainboard Dismembers for removal, use plain ol' Counterspells, and play literally any other blue creature respectively.

• You could play the full 4 of Sanity Grinding.

• Very spicy Sword of Body and Mind, but I really think this slot could be put to better use, especially given the $ value of the card. You don't have many good creatures to even equip it to. Now, if you had a few Jace's Phantasms, that might be a different story. A 5/5 flyer for 1 mana is already nuts, but now it's a 7/7 that mills for 10 and makes wolves.

• You need some stronger control elements. I'd play more counterspells in the sideboard... Mana Leak, Negate, and Essence Scatter are all worth experimenting with. You'll get way more mileage out of those cards than something like Thought Scour or Jace Beleren. You could experiment with Unsummon effects too, they pair nicely with counters.

• You should consider an alternate win condition. I know this is supposed to be a mill deck, but there are going to be matchups where this won't work (at least not in the budget version). You could accept that and not care, or you could make some concessions. To that end, I would propose just playing like an honest control deck and running 1-2 Prognostic Sphinx or Sphinx of the Final Word. It doesn't have to be mainboard.

• Manic Scribe, Overwhelmed Apprentice and Wall of Lost Thoughts are low quality cards that happen to fit your theme. They're not as bad as the other three I singled out, but these would still be among the first places I made cuts.

R492 on Dimir Rogue Mill

3 years ago

That's a decent combo and I'm always looking to fit draw power into new decks, this does feel a bit too far off the mill condition though. Things like Glacial Grasp have been filling the niche a bit better since they also contribute to the mill, and I did have Mind Drain in for a bit as well for card advantage but I ended up getting rid of it since it ran a bit too slow. It's the same reason I got rid of my Zareth San, the Trickster, he's perfectly fine and even strong as a rogue but he doesn't quite fit the goal of the deck the way I it tends to play out.

If mill were more of a secondary condition or some passive effect only there for the sake of ramping my rogues I'd definitely look to spice it up with that, it's a nice easy combo for free draw power. I may even make a secondary deck based around that if I get the cards, though I may go Simic instead since generally that's where the best mutate combos can be found.

I'm also running almost exclusively with Zendikar Rising cards since that's all I've been trying to open packs for so I haven't encountered many of those cards, and getting the rares could take some time. Would it be worth opening packs from older sets to try to get a mutate deck going?

Rorolith on Mill

3 years ago

Try cutting 3xGlacial Grasp and adding 1xWall of Lost Thoughts and 2xBruvac the Grandiloquent.

Murphy77 on Mono blue mill deck

3 years ago

Into the Story seems like an excellent late game card, but might slow down play early on. Glacial Grasp could replace 1, or 2 Into the Story.

Confounding Conundrum is very much a side-deck card. It is not likely that most of your opponents will be drawing and playing an extra land per turn. I like the idea of Keep Safe to counter your opponents effects that could slow you down, while drawing cards to trigger Teferi's Tutelage.

Merfolk Secretkeeper relies on effects that return it to your hand so that you can replay Venture Deeper and Merfolk Windrobber also seems like a rather weak and situational card. I like the idea of cards like Facet Reader and Teferi's Protege to trigger extra card draws and extra mill from Teferi's Tutelage.

Other cards that I would consider (and maybe put in a side-board) are Chilling Trap, Deliberate and Field Research

FSims81 on Forbidden Tutelage

3 years ago

I almost feel like Protean Thaumaturge is unnecessary here. You've got 9 enchantments to help trigger it to copy the crab but you have no form of protection for anything on your board. You might want to consider dropping him and just focusing on the landfall and card draw to mill your opponent. This would give you space for some counter spells to help protect what you have on board or to keep any big threats from your opponent off the board. Consider Didn't Say Please or even Glacial Grasp to help control the board

And if you absolutely just want to stick with making copies of the crab maybe just swap the Thaumaturge out for Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip since it copies without needing another piece