Mesmeric Orb

Artifact

Whenever a permanent becomes untapped, that permanent's controller mills a card (They put the top card of their library into their graveyard.)

Combos

• Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb
• Birds of Paradise + Mesmeric Orb + Pemmin's Aura

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
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Asgeren on Mirko Vosk, Mind The Mill

1 hour ago

Yeah needs more ramp def. Whispering Madness, Dark Deal, Jace's Archivist are very good. and some good mill cards are def. Psychic Corrosion, Maddening Cacophony, Mesmeric Orb, Fractured Sanity and of course Bruvac the Grandiloquent but hes a little expensive...

DreadKhan on You lost your Pocket

6 days ago

I can't really decide if you've got enough Evasives so I'll leave it up to you, but I run Strixhaven Stadium without a great deal of them as a closer. I feel like the potential to end a player if you can sneak in with a bunch of weenies is pretty reasonable upside on a mana rock.

Mesmeric Orb is a pretty good way to mill a ton of cards potentially, which should hurt other people more than you. Court of Cunning synergizes with the evasive Rogues you have while also potentially milling people a bunch. Also, if you're going to Mill people a lot, maybe Coffin Queen? Free bodies that you can afford to throw away every turn might work.

I could be wrong, but with this many relatively small creatures, would War Tax or Propaganda fit? War Tax is probably the stronger card, since you can use it on anyone's turn to just stop attacking if they won't agree to your terms, it's very easy to make it impractical to swing for most decks. Propaganda has a higher floor I'd say, but a much lower ceiling is my issue, it does one thing very well, War Tax can protect anyone, or hinder any deck reliant on attacking.

jarncards on StickMan

2 weeks ago

I might run fewer/creatures, since stickfingers will until you reveal x creatures, not just x cards. The fewer you have the higher chance you hit one that destroys the table if you just overload on ramp and reanimates. Rather than these things Crawl from the Cellar,Ghoul's Feast,Gravepurge I'd focus on just reanimating and is easy to get and will probably serve you better. If you really do want it back in your hand Genesis Skullwinder and Eternal Witness do this while attached to a body.

Rather than sending to your hand these will just bring back Diregraf Rebirth, Victimize, Reanimate, Exhume, Unearth, Whisper, Blood Liturgist, Stitch Together,Dread Return.Geth, Lord of the Vault is expensive but can fill your yard as well as revive others. Finale of Devastation revives or tutors, and is a finisher.

Blossoming Wreath,Gnaw to the Bone probably heal less than lifelink, and there's a ton of ways to give lifelink.

Rampant Growth is slightly inferior to Three Visits and Nature's Lore as long as your dual lands have both typesOvergrown Tomb, Bayou, Woodland Chasm, although I'd definitely run all three if there's room. Culling Ritual would be an amazing ramp/wipe card you can use to nuke all tokens and then cast stickfingers. Sakura-Tribe Elder is just rampant growth that works as a blocker for one turn, and it is another creature in your graveyard. Lotus Cobra ramps too, particularly with your other ramp options.

And you'll likey have enough mana to use Decree of Pain, if not, other wipe options are Damnation,Pernicious Deed,Death Cloud,Deathbringer Regent,In Garruk's Wake,Killing Wave,Necromantic Selection,Plague Wind,Reiver Demon,Toxic Deluge. Torment of Hailfire works as a finisher too Endurance is basically the only way you can protect your graveyard that I can think of. I'd probably run Veil of Summer too.

Moodmark Painter gives the +x/+x buff and is on a body Garruk Relentless  ^Flip flips into Garruk, the Veil-Cursed, but its tricky to make this one work

Since you'll have access to really big creatures these can be nice for draw. Greater Good, Momentous Fall, Return of the Wildspeaker, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Morbid Curiosity, Life's Legacy, Disciple of Bolas, Doom Weaver, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds.

Mesmeric Orb,Stitcher's Supplier would be an amazing graveyard filler.

Zombie Infestation and Wild Mongrel is usefull for dumping creatures out of your hand

I think every single black deck should run Dauthi Voidwalker, and the more grave hate you have the more you could take advantage of Living End/Living Death if you use these as mass reanimates. they are the cheapest.

Life from the Loam and Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip would be good helps for mana and options.

As long as you run Filth run Crop Rotation and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth too since it will make every creature you have unblockable.

Deathrite Shaman would benefit from more fetch lands Marsh Flats,Verdant Catacombs,Misty Rainforest would help mana fix as well as throw more lands into your graveyard.

You have a fairly high number of tutors, and a ton of ramp, so i'd consider Panglacial Wurm. It's a card you dont need to waste a draw to get and can be cast instant speed. And its fun to surprise people with it at least once.

CommanderNeyo on Whoopsidisi!

4 weeks ago

Have you considered adding Basalt Monolith? With Mesmeric Orb, it lets you mill as much of your library as you would like.

SniperFrog on Oona

1 month ago

Alright. So there's a couple things I would change, but I don't want you to think it's better or anything, just what I would do. I'll give budget suggestions and non budget suggestions so you have a variety of choices without hurting the wallet.

I think I would go for mono blue so I can get Bruvac the Grandiloquent's effect in my command zone. It seems actually nutty to just be able to get this guy going. That being said, I like a lot of the black spells you have here, namely Mind Grind and Nightscape Familiar, so I would consider something like Phenax, God of Deception or maybe Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker to stay in dimir. Not really sure the red is helping much at all, though. Only four red cards is a bit of a bad look, though they seem cool in theory. I've never played any of them, so I don't really know how good they actually are.

So there are a few optimizations I would consider as well. Three mana rocks are a bit slow for my tastes and there are a lot of decent options at two mana, I'd recommend Fellwar Stone, Mind Stone and Arcane Signet to name a few cheaper options. There's also Sapphire Medallion, Chrome Mox and Mana Vault, though those are strictly non budget.

More optimizations for interaction seems good here as well. Maybe drop some of your three mana counterspells for some one or two mana spells. Counterspell is a mainstay and at very good price as well. I like Swan Song, An Offer You Can't Refuse and Drown in the Loch in this slot. There are a plethora of non budget options as well, particularly free counters like Force of Will and Force of Negation or other heavy hitters like Mana Drain and Cryptic Command. Plenty of cool things to do with this, however, so you have options.

Your lands look rough. I personally will always go with untapped lands with so many options, but that can get really pricy, really fast. Of course, if you didn't have to worry about a red splash, your landbase gets A LOT better.

If you're having trouble with hitting enough lands, consider lowering the curve a bit or even adding a couple more to try to smooth things out. I generally try to have around forty-two to forty-five mana sources, though my curves are usually around 2-2.5, so you might want a little more than that, maybe. I don't know. That's something you can figure out with playtesting.

Now comes the fun part. As it stands, including the above mentioned cards, I would try to find room for these:

Into the Story for some card draw.

Leyline of the Void or something similar like Planar Void along with Helm of Obedience mills infinitely. Also pretty good to beat the eldrazi triggers if you see these things regularly.

Rhystic Study and its baby brother Mystic Remora are both excellent card draw spells with humongous upside, though they are both getting a little on the expensive side now, with Rhystic pushing forty or fifty bucks.

I like Bitter Ordeal, but I think this is kind of a pet card that I want to make work, so I might be projecting here. lol

Reanimate effects seem VERY strong here. I like the ones that target opponent's graveyards the most, so I would stick with Animate Dead and Dance with the Dead along with the aforementioned reanimate. Didn't think about this at first. Could be really sweet.

Mesmeric Orb is money in these decks. Gives mad inevitability.

Altar of the Brood and Altar of Dementia are both combo pieces, but I feel like they're more build arounds than good on their own.

Folio of Fancies. I've never seen this card before, but I love it. Seems like it would fit nicely.

Tome Scour and Brain Freeze are insane with Underworld Breach but this is another build around that pulls you more into storm than mill, I think. Still maybe worth thinking about.

Sands of Delirium seems sweet.

A few draw X spells could be just what you need. Stroke of Genius, Pull from Tomorrow, Fascination and Prosperity come to mind. Skyscribing also seems sweet, but I'm not sure how good it is.

Some cards I would just outright cut:

Gravepurge, not positive what this is doing for you, beside gumming up your draws. I guess it can get something back but not sure it's relevant. Hard to say without playing the deck.

All three mana rocks. Darksteel Ingot, Dimir Cluestone, Ur-Golem's Eye, Hedron Archive are a few. There are actually a few more than I thought, so maybe cutting all of them isn't the right thing to do unless you are cutting like for like for cheaper rocks.

Grisly Spectacle, I feel like you can get a better removal spell. I see the appeal, but I feel like it will get at most six cards milled maybe. Something like Feed the Swarm is probably just better or Drown in the Loch which hits two birds with one stone.

Countermand. Four mana counterspell seems like a really hard ask. I know it's on theme, but something cheaper is probably just better. See above for suggestions on cheap counters.

I would maybe cut some other, stuff, but I feel like I've already given you a lot to think about. Love the list. I'm excited to see it once you've had a chance to keep tuning it. Follow for sure. :)

wallisface on Modern Mill-Castic

3 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

Hastapasta on HELL MILL

6 months ago

Hi! Yes, the crabs are very OP. I added Mesmeric Orb to partner with Fraying Sanity. When your mill yourself, you also mill others, essential doubling mill. It works pretty well. Any other questions? I am just wondering because CONTROL PARALYZES. This deck seeks quick destruction. I don't like to waste turns.

9-lives on HELL MILL

6 months ago

Wow! Very good idea with Mesmeric Orb and Fraying Sanity for self-milling, as it says 'from anywhere'! This will also punish opponents who have a large amount of creatures and lands. I can see this becoming powerful at turn 4, as there will be at least 4 lands on both sides of the field, and even without creatures that makes for 8 mill! And if you cast Fraying Sanity ASAP, you will have it working by turn 3. Awesome!