Mind Sculpt

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed 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
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Mind Sculpt

Sorcery

Target opponent puts the top seven cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Caerwyn on Fun opponent mill deck

4 months ago

Mill is a fairly established archetype, with a long history in Modern. It struggles in a number of regards due to effectively being a slower version of burn (it plays a lot like burn, albeit they have 60 "health" instead of 20).

The bread and butter of Mill is fairly expensive--you run 4x Ruin Crab, 4x Hedron Crab, then toss some fetch lands (like Polluted Delta) to double up on your crab triggers. Given how fast Modern is, it can be really hard for Mill to excel if you do not fully commit to the 8-Crab strategy.

Even if you are not running Fetch lands, you should still run the full 8 crabs.

You'll also likely want to change to Black and Blue instead of Mono-Black, which gives you access to the excellent Drown in the Loch and removal in the form of Fatal Push. Your deck as it stands is really light on removal, which is not going to get you far in Modern.

For some smaller changes:

  • Replace Serum Visions with the vastly better for this deck Visions of Beyond.
  • Traumatize is too much mana for what it does. Instead run Archive Trap and Field of Ruin to force opponents to search their library (they'll probably be doing it with fetch lands anyway, but will be wary once they see you are running mill, so the forced search is a great way to get some big, free mill spells fired off).
  • Glimpse the Unthinkable is a very efficient if you switch over to to Black/Blue--and those extra three cards make a huge difference over the inferior Mind Sculpt.

You'll also need to think about a sideboard if you want to be competitive in Modern, with answers tailored to your particular meta (or at least the most common decks you are most likely to see at any given meta).

wallisface on Venture Deeper

5 months ago

Blue has pretty much no good options for removal unfortunately, so you’d probably need to splash into black or white.

I suspect you “haven't had a problem with three costs” only because your playgroup are also playing mostly slow/clumsy spells… anything 3-mana or above is generally slow to play regardless of the decks land count (because playing such a card usually means that’s your only spell for the turn).

If i were making a mill deck on an ultra-budget, as you are, it’ll probably look something like this:

Jupiter_Ascendancy on Tolarian Mill

5 months ago

I like the deck so far.

Some takeaways I'm getting from a few playtests-

  • I don't think you need Remote Isle here, if anything it should at least be replaced with Lonely Sandbar, which costs less mana to cycle and was originally a common, even if it's now printed at uncommon. However, I would probably just play regular islands.
  • Play more islands as well, I tend to get stuck at 2-3 lands which isn't very much.
  • Run some more single-use mill cards- for example, Tome Scour and Mind Sculpt can hit pretty heavily in just one turn.

This looks like a good start, but I think this might give it the kick it needs to work against more efficient opponents.

TawfulEvil on Venture Deeper

5 months ago

Thanks for commenting on my deck! This is my first time posting one.

The spells may be a little inefficient, but I chose them mostly for how they work together. I use the Oculus, Unsummon, and Thought Collapse to hold back whatever I can, while I use the Kraken's Eye to try to keep my life total high enough that I don't promptly die if something has trample. (My little brother favors green creatures)

The Sage's Row Denizen and the Murmuring Mystic both have abilities to help the Merfolk Secretkeeper, netting me chump tokens and a bit more mill when it enters.

Fractured Sanity is an excellent idea! I don't believe I've seen that card. Maybe I'd replace it for the Startled Awake  Flip cards?

The creatures conundrum is interesting to me though. I don't play super competetively, but I use the creatures for the mill, both when they enter and when they die. I actually do have Ruin Crab, but the Merfolk Secretkeeper is critical to the deck in my opinion, with it's adventures and re-entering the field.

Profane Memento... I Love It!!! Why have I never seen this beautiful evil creation!!! I may need 20 of them. Well not twenty, but definitely replacing the Kraken's Eye.

It does not have much removal, which I have encountered as a problem before. I would like to keep it mono-blue though if possible. I've mostly just handled threats through Unsummon-ing massive attacking threats, and through Thought Collapse-ing any main combo starters I see. I would love suggestions though, especially blue ones.

You're probably correct with the mana curve though... I'm just unlucky about having lands when I need them, so in frustration, I probably put in to many... Cutting back some lands is a wise suggestion, thanks.

The three costs I actually haven't had a problem with. (Probably because of the extra lands) I could maybe pack a couple of Mind Sculpts if I had to, but for my two cost department I simply wait for a Murmuring Mystic before I cast Winged Words. Unless I feel I have to of course!

wallisface on Mill,mill and mill....

5 months ago

It feels like this list should be far more optimised than it is, considering the $$$ investment. Some thoughts:

I have my own competitive mill deck here which may help inspire you.

wallisface on Hard miller

9 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • don’t remove the Hedron Crab. Competitively speaking, Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab are the only 2 creatures ever worth playing in a mill deck! Jace's Phantasm is not a helpful card as it doesn’t do any milling, and is just diluting the primary goal of milling your opponent.

  • a game should never go so long that Fleet Swallower can be cast… i would suggest ditching it

  • A good way to evaluate mill spells is to compare them to burn spells. In burn, 3 damage (aka Lightning Bolt) is the bare minimum damage a spell needs to do. Spells like Shock, doing 2 damage, aren’t helpful, as you run out of resources in-hand well-before the game is close to being won. Mill cards, in a similar vein, need to generally mill at least 8 cards to be worthwhile. So stuff like Overwhelmed Apprentice, and Tome Scour just aren’t worth it (Mind Sculpt is borderline).

  • Psychic Corrosion is also not great for similar reasons as above. By the time its cast you’re unlikely to be drawing enough cards in the remainder of the game to make it worthwhile.

  • Fraying Sanity is a trap card, and i wouldn’t suggest playing more than a single copy, if any. By the time its down your opponent should already be heavily milled, so oftentimes the card only equates to milling as much as a single millspell anyway. Drawing a second copy of this card is prettymuch a dead draw and can often cost you the game.

  • both the planewalkers are just too slow, imo.

  • i think you need more interaction. Mill can’t rely on winning races, so you need ways to throw the opponent off-kilter

wallisface on Modern Mill-Castic

9 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

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