Surgical Extraction
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy 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
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Surgical Extraction

Instant

( can be paid with either or 2 life.)

Choose target card in a graveyard other than a basic land card. Search its owner's graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that card and exile them. Then that player shuffles their library.

SufferFromEDHD on Mono-Black 0 Mana Cost

10 hours ago

Cool concept!

I think Scale of Chiss-Goria could be cut as this is an aggro deck. Upgrades could be fast mana like Lotus Petal or Mox Opal maybe even main decking Surgical Extraction.

jbump75 on

3 weeks ago

wallisface I tested the Maddening Cacophony; I LOVE IT! Not requiring the black mana cost like Glimpse the Unthinkable helps and it works almost as well, plus the added kicker (not that you get to use it much but it's an added benefit). I increased the lands to 22 by adding a few Misty Rainforest and took out the Shipwreck Marsh. I decreased Surgical Extraction to 3 copies (I may consider going back to 4 and removing a Baleful Mastery (could even replace this with Damnation). I'm still not loving Tasha's Hideous Laughter. I know it's a good card, but between THL and Fractured Sanity, I like Fractured Sanity. I know most people run at least one Crypt Incursion but I feel like in the people I've been playing against I would rather have the extra creature/planeswalker removal of Baleful Mastery. For now, I think this is how the deck is going to look. Thanks for all your help!

nbarry223 on Shifty Crabs!

1 month ago

Well, if you were going a third color, the obvious choice is . Drown in the Loch is so powerful in a mill deck as a denial card, as it can counter a threat or be removal, and it scales, all for 2 mana. also has a lot of gravehate options, many of which gain life, so they help against both aggro and graveyard oriented decks, which may help to free up some slots in the sideboard, by consolidating your hate a bit.

Jace, the Perfected Mind is also a pretty powerful potential tool if able to be enabled, main enabler is usually Archive Trap (would suggest Field of Ruin if you went that route). Tasha's Hideous Laughter is another option if just going for the mill since most modern decks are very low curves.

I'm also a little surprised you don't have much in the way of gravehate in your sideboard. What do you do against decks where your mill strategy enables them? Bojuka Bog and Grafdigger's Cage just seem suboptimal. If removing threats already in the graveyard, I'd consider something like Surgical Extraction or Ashiok, Dream Render. If doing something preventative, replacement effects are the way to go instead of narrow denial strategies like Grafdigger's Cage since a lot of strategies like Living End get around it. Dauthi Voidwalker or Rest in Peace are the two main cards that come to mind. Honestly though, I think your best option in your current colors is Relic of Progenitus, since it lets you slowly chip away at graveyard strategies or is a cantrip that can be used in response to their graveyard strategy.

wallisface on

1 month ago

Personally i’d also ditch Scheming Symmetry as generally the card is very gimmicky and creates too much self hand-disadvantage. However, instead of filling that slot with Tasha’s, i’d instead be adding in Surgical Extraction, which imo is one of the mist vital cards for a mill deck to run.

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (Turn 2)

1 month ago

Yeah, the only cards that make sense which I didn't really consider (I've seen them a few times) are Pick the Brain and Shimian Specter - still don't think they make the cut. Shimian Specter seems pretty disgusting if you can get it to stick around, but that would be quite the challenge in a creature based deck like this. I could see it being a decent game 2 tool in a control shell if you play little to no creatures, making them side out most of their removal, but beyond that, it is a little too fragile. I've contemplated Surgical Extraction before, but it relies on them already playing their threat, which is too late for me, since we don't have any targeted discard or mill. I ran Necromentia and Unmoored Ego for a while, but the colorless aspect of The Stone Brain just makes it worth that extra mana of investment.

wallisface on Blue/black mill

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

  • It looks like you're currently trying to do 3 different things here: mill your opponent out, combo-off, and deal them 20 damage. This is just going to weaken your overall gameplan because whichever way to try to win, only half of the cards you draw are going to help with that. I would suggest you reorganize the deck to be entirely-focused on the mill plan, entirely focused on the Duskmantle Guildmage combo, or entirely focused on the beatdown plan.

If you're wanting to build a Mill Deck:

  • There are no creatures at all worth running except for Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab. Nothing else is even remotely worth the effort of running, because nothing else really helps with the goal of milling your opponent.

  • Also something to be aware of, is that you need any card that is milling to get at least 8 cards from your opponents deck (try to compare mill spells as burn spell, except you need to do 53 damage instead of 20 - so the same way that burn can never justify running Shock, mill can never justify running Tome Scour). Any less than this, and you just end up empty-handed with your opponent still alive. So I would suggest ditching Mind Grind, Tome Scour, Traumatize, both the planeswalkers, and your artifacts. I would also say to get rid of Fraying Sanity because that card is just bad. Instead look to add things like Fractured Sanity, Maddening Cacophony and Archive Trap.

  • You'll want a decent amount of interaction in the form of Surgical Extraction and Fatal Push, as well as Drown in the Loch. Crypt Incursion is also great to keep yourself alive longer

  • An example deck of how this looks here

If you're wanting to build a Combo Deck:

  • you'll want to up your copies of Mindcrank to a full playset. You also want ways to fetch both your combo pieces in the way of cards like Dimir Infiltrator and Muddle the Mixture, as well as draw spells like Consider or Serum Visions.

  • Duskmantle Guildmage is the only real creature you need to run, though its worth also considering Spellskite as a way to protect your combo pieces, and Vendilion Clique as either a way to fix your own hand, or mess with your opponents.

  • Your other cards should mainly be focused on ensuring your opponent can't disrupt what you're doing. Spell Pierce and Counterspell will be great here, as well as proactive cards like Inquisition of Kozilek. Because you only really want to slow your opponent down, stuff like Vapor Snag can be decent too (note this card can also start the combo triggering once you have the pieces in play).

  • A budget dechtech example with description, list & video this deck here

If you're wanting to build a Creature-beatdown Deck:

  • You probably don't want to be doing much milling at all, or at least you don't want to be running any cards that only mill. The most practical route to go down is probably using Rogues, with cards like Thieves' Guild Enforcer and Soaring Thought-Thief.

  • A budget dechtech example with description, list & video this deck here

zapyourtumor on

2 months ago

I mean personally I don't think you need more removal. Tasha's might not seem "consistent", but it's probably the best mill spell in modern (with possible exception of archive trap). Even though the current meta is Murktides and Archons and high cmc rhinos cards and Furies and Griefs, people are still running 4 Tasha's and 0 Glimpse, which just shows how strong the card is still. If I was tuning the list I would probably do something like this

Out 4x Glimpse the Unthinkable, 3x Baleful Mastery

In 4x Tasha's Hideous Laughter, 2x Surgical Extraction, 1x Crypt Incursion

zapyourtumor on

2 months ago

I played a Scheming Symmetry mill deck for a while and it was a lot of fun. It tends to work better if you have some silver bullets to tutor in the maindeck; some examples for mill would be: Crypt Incursion, Surgical Extraction, Darkness, Damnation.

The current mill meta decks don't even run Glimpse anymore, they run 4 Tasha's 4 Fractured Sanity 4 Archive Trap. So it would probably be optimal to replace glimpses with Tasha's.

Baleful Mastery is also not a great card, you could cut it for Tasha's also. Unless your meta is so creature heavy that you need more than 8 removal spells, in which case there are still probably better options.

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