Mind Funeral

Sorcery

Target opponent reveals cards from the top of his or her library until four land cards are revealed. That player puts all cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard.

Discussion (32)

Brian-123 on Horror Creeping in the Shadows

1 week ago

whoops for got an awesome mill card Mind Funeral and I feel Consuming Aberration has a place among the horror creatures

Gilbobaggins on Horror Mill Deck

2 weeks ago

I would definitely swap out Mind Funeral for Tasha's Hideous Laughter

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.

StoryArcher on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

4 months ago

Caerwyn

The version of the deck you're talking about (well, MY version of the version of the deck you're talking about) can be found below. I think it's pretty strong right now, though any specific recommendations would be welcome - there are a number of other options I'm considering for those Maddening Cacophony slots, including Thought Scour, Mind Funeral, Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Tome Scour. I was also trying to decide whether the Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek suite might provide better value than Mana Leak / Counterspell.

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Mind Rape

Modern StoryArcher

12 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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I'm in agreement with you about Fraying Sanity, the trap of 'win more' is one I'm always on the lookout for. On the other hand, I've found value in the past of building a deck with more than one way to win, and backdooring a legitimate option through damage isn't something I want to discount right off the bat. Judicious use of the sideboard can allow you to shift the deck towards one option or the other in the 2nd & 3rd game, depending on what you're seeing across the board. Jace's Phantasm and Dauthi Voidwalker are excellent options in that regard and you can get some crazy value out of those mills for the latter.

Varamil on [Variant] Magic Noir

4 months ago

(printable version : )

Context

Mana management in Magic is not always optimal, and can even be very frustrating if the draw is really unbalanced. Moreover, if lands are vital at the beginning of the game, they usually pollute the deck more afterwards. On the other hand, this is part of the fun of the game and the art of creating effective decks in any situation.

If you really want to optimize a deck, I feel like you often have to use rare (and expensive) lands that allow you to clean up the deck (e.g., Wooded Foothills) or that provide mana in two colors of your choice (e.g., Badlands, Dragonskull Summit).

Anyway, that's the game, but I recently discovered another game that introduces a very interesting mana management mechanism: Mage Noir (check out their site). During my first play tests, I immediately liked the way mana was managed. There is no frustration of not having THE necessary color without swimming in mana, no problem of hand full of lands or no lands during many turns, and this system adds a very interesting tactical side.

The general logic is that each turn, players select 3 mana of the color of their choice. One part goes into their pool, but the other can be retrieved by the opponent on his next turn. So, you have to make your deal, but try not to favor your opponent.

I immediately thought that such a system, if it worked for Magic, would be very pleasant to use. So, I set about creating the variant described here.

Mana Pools

The principle introduced by Mage Noir is that each turn, the active player takes a certain amount of mana from the Infinite Pool and places them in the Channeled Pool. Then he can take some of this Channeled Pool to fill his Personal Pool.

A common feature of all the reserves presented below is that their contents are visible to all players at all times.

The Infinite Pool

The Infinite Pool is composed of 6 mana colors, the 5 classic Magic colors plus the colorless "color" which becomes a color in its own right.

To make this mana pool, arrange the basic lands, face up, in 5 separate piles containing only lands of the same color (one pile of plains, another of islands...). For the colorless color, make a sixth pile with face-down cards (or any other type of card that you will not confuse with the 5 primary colors). These piles must be easily accessible by the players.

Ideally, you should have 20-25 lands in each pile, especially for the colors that are present in the decks that are played.

The Channeled Pool

This pool is a common intermediate pool that will be replenished each turn by the players and after certain events. It is also in this pool that the players will draw to feed their Personal Pool.

It is composed of 2 distinct piles that can contain a varied number and type of mana. These 2 piles exist permanently even if one or both are empty. However, the identification or the positioning of these piles does not matter, they just have to be easily accessible to the players.

The details of its use are described in the paragraph New ability keyword: channeling X.

The Personal Pool

Corresponds to the classic Magic mana pool, the one that is replenished when you add mana to your mana pool, with the difference that it doesn't empty at the end of your turn.

Note that the direct consequence is that the notion of mana burn does not exist (anymore) in this variant of Magic (do I look old?).

The Stasis Pool

This is a special mana pool used in special cases. It is mainly used to make certain mana of a player temporarily inaccessible. Each player has his own Stasis Pool.

See §Effects Involving Lands for full details, but in general, all effects that engage land or prevent land from being untapped will instead send mana from the Personal Pool into the Stasis Pool. How to recover this mana then depends on the effect.

Mana management

New ability keyword: channeling X

In this variant a new keyword appears: channeling X. It corresponds to an action which consists in:

1. Take X mana from the Infinite Pool,

2. Add them, one by one and alternately, to the two piles of the Channeled Pool, starting with the smallest pile. An empty pile is considered to be the smallest possible pile, and in case of a tie, the player performing the action chooses the pile.

This action cannot be interrupted from the moment it was started. No player (nor the player performing the channeling) may perform any other action until all the mana involved by the channeling has been added to the Channeled Pool.

If there is more than one mana involved (X ≥ 2), then the player performing the channeling chooses the order of adding mana

The X next to the keyword indicates the amount and type of mana the player can take from the Infinite Pool. It can be of several kinds:

• A number: the player can take as much mana as the indicated quantity, distributed according to the colors of his choice, the mixture being completely possible. The colorless mana is a possibility as well as the "classic" colored mana.

• Colorless mana (respecting the iconography of Magic: , ...): the player must take the indicated amount of colorless mana. He can't take white, blue, red, black or green mana instead.

• Colored mana: the player must take a mana of the indicated color.

Here are some examples:

• Channeling 2: the player chooses 2 mana of any color.

• Channeling : the player takes 1 colorless mana and 2 blue mana.

On the side of the Channeled Pool, if for example the A pile contains 2 mana, and the B pile contains 3 mana, then for a channeling , the player can:

1. Add to pile A

2. Then to pile B

3. And to pile A.

The order in the example could be or , but the A pile will always (in this case) have 2 more mana at the end of the action, and the B pile only 1 more mana.

New ability keyword: focus X

The focus consists of taking X mana from the Infinite Pool and put it directly into your Personal Pool.

However, the mana thus recovered is returned to the channeled reserve at the end of the current turn if it has not been used (i.e. as for mana in the classic rules).

The same rules as for the channeling apply in terms of color restriction (ex: 2 ≠ ).

New ability keyword: stasis X

Ability to take X mana from a player's Personal Pool and place it in that player's Stasis Pool. Unless otherwise noted, the mana from the Stasis Pool returns to the player's Personal Pool during his next land clearing step.

The same rules as for the channeling apply in terms of color restriction (ex: 2 ≠ ).

New ability keyword: dissipation X

The player who is the target of a dissipation must return X mana from his Personal and/or Stasis Pool to the Infinite Pool. If he does not have enough mana available, he must empty both his reserves.

The same rules as for the channeling apply in terms of color restriction (ex: 2 ≠ ).

Untapping step:

During the untapping step, the active player additionally recovers mana from his Stasis Pool and places it in his Personal Pool, unless the mana was placed in stasis by an effect that specifies a particular condition for mana recovery (see §Effects Involving Lands).

New game phase: Channeling

After the draw step, during the beginning of the turn phase, a new step is added: the channeling. This step takes place as follows:

1. The active player will make a channeling 3, it cannot be countered in any way.

2. Players can then play instant, activate abilities (mana or not) following the classic Magic rules. Rituals and invocations (except flash) cannot be played.

3. Finally, the active player chooses one of the two piles from the Channeled Pool and adds it to his Personal Pool.

The step is optional, but if it is done, it must be done in full. Moreover, if it is done, the player cannot play any more lands from his hand during this turn (except for the effect of a spell).

Thus, during the channeling, the active player must choose whether he prefers to place a land or to take mana from the Channeled Pool.

Activation of mana abilities

As soon as a card indicates that you can add any number of mana to your mana pool (lands, abilities, spells...) you must make a focus X instead, where X is exactly the mana indicated in the initial text.

So add to your mana pool becomes focus .

However, if the card that allows you to make a channeling is a land, you must sacrifice it and put it in your graveyard. Note that if an ability of a land is used and it does not generate mana, the land is not sacrificed, the land behaves as a simple permanent.

Pay a mana cost

To pay the mana cost of a spell or ability, you must use the mana in your Personal Pool. The rules are as follows:

• Colored mana has to be paid with mana of the same color,

• Colorless mana has to be paid with mana of a different color than the card or with colorless mana. For example, the colorless mana of a red card cannot be paid with red mana, but a mixture of other colors can be used, not necessarily a single color. For multicolored cards, the possible colors are those that do not appear in the colored part of the spell casting cost (so for abilities you have to look at the spell casting cost and not the ability cost). The goal is to force monochrome decks to vary the amount of mana they channel, so that in the end they are not at an advantage over multicolored decks.

• For artifacts, creatures with Devoid, or any other colorless card, the colorless mana cost must be paid with at least half the cost rounded up in colorless mana, with the rest of the cost to be paid with any colored mana. For example, an artifact with a summoning cost of 3 or 4 should be paid with 2 colorless mana and the rest in colored mana. As colorless mana becomes a color in its own right, the goal is to approach the same constraints as for colored costs.

• Sunburst: no change except for colorless cards. For these, in order not to reduce the effect too much, the rule is adjusted. Colorless mana that normally must be used may be replaced by a colored mana if and only if only one mana of that color is used to pay the cost. For example, for a cost of with Sunburst, or can be used, but not . Colorless mana still does not count towards the effects of Sunburst.

This defines the mana to be used to pay the cost. The use of the mana thus spent depends on the type of card:

• Cost to summon a Permanent: Mana stays with the permanent. Slide the spent mana under the permanent card. Ideally, you should put the cards in a staircase so that the mana attached to the permanent is always visible. If the permanent leaves the battlefield, the mana that was attached to it returns to the Channeled Pool following the same rules as for channeling (except that the mana does not come from the Infinite Pool).

• Otherwise (spell, ability...): once the effect is resolved, the mana that has been spent returns to the Channeled Pool following the same rules as for channeling (except that the mana does not come from the Infinite Pool).

Remarks:

• Ability color restrictions are based on the color of the card with the ability, even if an opponent has to pay the mana cost in the end. Ex: Mystical Dispute: the cost of must be paid with non-blue mana.

Adjustment of rules

Building a deck

As mana management is totally different and the interest of lands becomes limited (as they are single-use, see Activation of mana abilities), it is no longer necessary to build a deck with lands. As a result, the minimum number of cards that a deck must contain is reduced to 40 cards instead of 60 (lands usually represent about one third of a classic deck).

Regarding lands, they are still allowed but there is now a limit of 8 lands in a deck, and each land (identical name) can only be present 4 times. Moreover, as mentioned in §New game phase: Channeling, a land can only be put into play from the hand if the player has not channeled this turn.

Ideally, you should limit the cards to a maximum of 3, if you are making a deck specifically for this variant, but the goal is to be able to play easily, so the easiest thing to do is to just remove the lands from your existing decks and enjoy!

Nevertheless, a number of effects must be adapted to the new number of cards.

General rules

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, some general rules must be adjusted:

• The starting hand is 5 cards instead of 7, but the (basic) maximum number of cards remains 7.

• All effects based on the number of cards in a library must consider a number of cards divided by 2, rounded up. If the targeted player's library has less than 20 cards [...] becomes If the targeted player's library has less than 10 cards [...]. Or Put the top 3 cards of the targeted library under it becomes Put the top 2 cards of the targeted library under it.

• By extension, all the effects of draw, mil, scry... also have the number of cards concerned divided by 2, rounded up.

• Spell casting costs including a cost in : Since mana can be accumulated from turn to turn, it can be easier to cast overpowered spells. Therefore, the cost of mana in must be multiplied by 2, so (so if the cost was already , then it becomes !).

• Effects involving a number of lands are generally replaced by a devotion on the associated color (affinity, crossing...). See §Effects Involving Lands for more details.

Effects Involving Lands

• Number of lands of a color: replaced by a Devotion to the concerned color. For artifact lands consider a devotion to the colorless divided by 2, rounded down.

• Basic Land Affinity: to determine the cost reduction, consider that you have as much land as the value of your Devotion to the color of the land concerned. Ex: Affinity with Swamps => the cost of the spell can be reduced by X colorless where X is your Devotion to Black.

• Improvise: no change.

• Land cycling: the player can perform a Channeling 2, but only using mana of the color of the indicated field. Ex: Mountain Cycling = Channeling .

• Landfall: is triggered if a land has actually been put into play, or if an effect/spell that should have put a land into play is resolved (but has in fact been replaced by a focus, see the point above). Channeling and focus do not therefore by default trigger the ability.

• Landwalk:

  • Possible as soon as a mana of the concerned color is attached to a permanent of the targeted opponent. Ex: Mountainwalk => creature cannot be blocked as long as there is Red mana attached to an opponent's permanent.

  • In the case of supertype (e.g., legendary land), then the creature cannot be blocked as long as the opponent has a permanent of the specified type (e.g., legendary creature/enchantment)

  • In the case of subtypes (e.g., snowy forest), then the subtype is ignored.

For the next effects, the following rules apply in general:

• If the initial effect specifies a (combination of) land color, then the targeted mana must be of the same (combination of) color.

• For artifact lands, consider colorless mana.

• If the number of targeted lands is 2 or more, a combination of land and mana can be used respecting the indicated ratio.

• If the effect requires a quantity to be resolved, the player must respect the quantity requested (either in land or in mana). If there is not enough land/mana the spell cannot be resolved.

On the effects side, they can be replaced by:

• Tap X Lands (spell effect): stasis X. Ratio of 1 land to 1 mana.

• Untap X Lands (spell effect): focus X. Ratio of 1 land to 1 mana.

• Destroy X Lands: dissipation XX. Ratio of 1 land to 2 mana.

• Sacrifice X Lands: dissipation XX. Ratio of 1 land to 2 mana.

• Return X lands to his owner's hand: stasis XX. Ratio of 1 land to 2 mana.

• Exile X land: dissipation XX. Ratio of 1 land to 2 mana.

• Put X land into play (spell effect): focus X. If the lands arrive in play tapped, then the mana is placed in the Stasis Pool instead of the Personal Pool. Ratio of 1 land to 1 mana.

Abilities

• Exile: the mana attached to the exiled card (if it was in play) remains attached to the card during its exile, and returns with it if it leaves the exile.

• Ingest: no change because it concerns only one card.

• Mil: the number of cards is divided by 2, rounded up.

• Monarch: no change because it concerns only one card.

• Scry: the number of cards is divided by 2, rounded up

• Ripple: the number of cards is divided by 2, rounded up.

• Threshold: no change, the other adjustments mean that normally the cemetery does not fill up much faster.

• Sunburst: no change except for the colorless cards (see §Pay a mana cost)

• Surveil: the number of cards is divided by 2, rounded up.

Banned Cards

It is likely that some cards will become too strong with the new mana mechanics, if this is the case then it would be wise not to use them. Here is a non-exhaustive list of such cards:

• To be defined, feel free to send me cards that should be banned.

However, if possible, if by slightly adjusting the text of the card it is possible to return to an acceptable effect (compared to what it can produce with the classic rules), then it can be used. Here is a non-exhaustive list of such cards:

• Mind Funeral: will probably mill the whole deck at once, but if we consider Mil 8 instead (so that 4 cards are actually discarded, see §Abilities) then the card becomes fully playable again. You can also consider rolling a die to discard 4+X cards.

• Feel free to send me other cards that should be adjusted.

The main thing in these cases is to reach an agreement between players before starting the game.

Improve the game material

Mage Noir also uses cards to symbolize mana, but in the end using tokens of adapted colors makes the management much simpler: it takes much less space, it is easier to identify the mana, when tapping/untapping you don't need to manage the piles so that the mana remains visible...

Personally, I use colored plastic crystals, but cubes, discs, wood or plastic (metal?) are just as good, the trick is to have the right colors if possible.

Clearly, it's not necessary, but it makes the game much more enjoyable, I think.

Conclusion

These rules have been tested on a number of different decks: aggro, mil, tribal, discard, madness... but never played at a competitive level. I did not observe any noticeable imbalance, I even found that some "less good" decks managed to compete better against the other decks.

The mana management is less random, more balanced between players, there is really a tactical aspect on the choice of mana or on the fact to destroy a permanent. The mana curve is no longer linear, there are strong moments and weak moments, a bit like in a real fight, where when you have just cast a big spell, you are a priori a bit out of breath.

I've been away from Magic for a while, but this idea really motivated me to come back to it and in the end, I really enjoyed playing it again using this variant.

So, I hope you'll have fun testing it, and giving me feedback to improve it!

wallisface on Mill yo dck

6 months ago

Thoughts:

• you should defo get rid of both Mind Funeral and Fraying Sanity from your deck. Funeral is just too unreliable, and generally doesn’t do much at all for it’s mana cost. Fraying Sanity is bad, because oftentimes it’s doing the same amount of work as one mill spell. Also, drawing a second Fraying Sanity often means losing the game.

• Assuming you ditch the above-mentioned cards, there are a lot of strong replacements. I’m surprised you’re not running Visions of Beyond , as that is normally a very strong card for mill. There’s also Fractured Sanity , if you’re just wanting more mill.

• 24 lands feels a bit steep here. I think you can get away with 22.

• outside of this, i’m surprised by your lack of interaction. Stuff like Drown in the Loch is really good for us to throw the opponent off-kilter. Also, running 1-2 copies of Crypt Incursion usually means winning the game on the spot (and will make you less dependant on Bridge & Darkness). I think in general, you’re running too many cards that mill and not enough disruption effects. Mill isn’t a deck that wins races well.

Have a gander at my build here. I’m not suggesting going down the same route, but it might help inspire some changes.

wallisface on Competitive Dimir Mill

8 months ago

Here’s my hot-take:

• you should be running a playset of Hedron Crab as well as the Ruin Crab . You’ll also want to get Polluted Delta (if your budget affords them) so you have more fetches for them to benefit from. These crabs are the best way to get some early game stuff in the grave to surgical extract, so running 8 feels super strong. At a minimum, field at least 6.

• It feels unintuitive, but Maddening Cacophony is stronger than Glimpse the Unthinkable because it gets around Leyline of Sanctity . If you’re running 6 of these cards total, have the playset be Maddening Cacophony instead of the other way around. I’ve yet to lose a game where 2 extra cards would’ve mattered.

• Mind Funeral and Tome Scour are really bad cards, and I don’t think you should run these. Tome Scour is the equivalent of Burn decks running Shock - it doesn’t do enough to get the job done. Similarly, Mind Funeral is unlikely to reward you enough for the mana investment.

• Despite how nice it reads on paper, Fraying Sanity is not a good card. Drawing a second one often means you’ve list yourself the game, so if you do insist on running it limit yourself to running it as a 1-of. Even then, it will often underperform in the deck - generally making you end the game at the same time had-of if been a Glimpse, or even worse, a turn slower.

I would suggest ditching the enchant and those 2 beforementioned bad sorceries for the Hedron Crab and then a smattering of Drown in the Loch , Fatal Push , Murderous Cut , and Inquisition of Kozilek . After that the next best thing to do would be to play tons of games at your local to build up a sideboard (read: Mill can’t win rounds without a strong sideboard), and save up for those Polluted Delta .

wallisface on Modern Mill Deck Help

8 months ago

I agree with Caerwyn that Fraying Sanity is a bad card. You can possibly get away with running a single copy (drawing a second one loses you the game), but even then there are just better things to be doing.

Anything with a low mill-quantity is also usually quite bad - stuff like Mind Funeral and Tome Scour might feel like they’re doing things, but really they’re just not worth it.

The way I think mill plays best is as a sudo-control build. Aim to give your opponent a taste at the start of the game, so you can Surgical Extraction away their key cards. Then ensure your opponent can’t do anything of value before finally wiping their deck away. This list here is what i’m currently running for Mill, and it regularly wins events at my local game store.

The other thing to note it Mill deck builds heavily rely on tuning themselves to what they’re playing. Their sideboard choices are more important than a lot of other decks, and its not uncommon to see them moving 9+ cards around during sideboarding.

Some general other tips I can offer:

• don’t run any creatures other than the crabs. No other creatures are worth it

• i’ve found running Ensnaring Bridge is far better than havinv Lurrus as a companion

• limit the amount of spells you run that specifically target an opponent. It’ll stop misery happening if your opponent runs Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard

Looking at your list it seems pretty close to good-mill. Just drop those bad mill cards and get some control elements in there instead, imo (as well as the other crab!).