Tome Scour

Sorcery

Target player puts the top five cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Discussion (49)

wallisface on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

4 months ago

It looks like the info that Caerwyn is golden, so i’m going to try to avoid repeating anything that’s already been said.

On the specific topic on whether Dauthi Voidwalker has any home in mill, I think the only use-case is if you’re currently running Ashiok, Dream Render in the sideboard, as these cards serve similar purposes and I could see potential for swapping one for the other. However, such a move would be highly meta-dependant, as most mill decks currently don’t run Ashiok anyway, and Dauthi appears in most cases to be worse.

Answering some thoughts specific to StoryArcher: Tome Scour has no place is a mill deck, it equates to a worse Shock. Mono blue mill can perform well, but does struggle as far as controlling the board state, and staying alive. Also, stuff like Sanity Grinding is very gimmicky and liable to cost you games. I think because mill needs so many fetches anyway to make the crabs happy, you can basically run a second/third colour for free, so going mono-blue feels like a big concession.

StoryArcher on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

4 months ago

Ugh... I HATE how we can't edit posts after the fact. I meant to ask in the above post if the deck would be better off with the counters or leaning into the speed of the mill and going with something like Maddening Cacophony, Tome Scour and Thought Scour in those slots as well?

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.

Squirrelbacon on Jace's Mill

7 months ago

Fractured Sanity , Tome Scour , and Jace's Erasure would all be valuable options to run. You could also run Ipnu Rivulet as a 4 of in place of some islands for some resilient mill action!

wallisface on Competitive Dimir Mill

7 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

7 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!).

keksoe666 on Mill Modern V2

1 year ago

This is an interesting list although I personally would suggest a few changes: Since you're running a playset of Hedron Crab I would suggest playing fetches, even cheap fetches such as Evolving Wilds andTerramorphic Expanse would be additions your deck could greatly benefit from due to the double Landfall-triggers and the way you'd thin out your deck (also, since your running the crabs I would suggest playing more lands in general, about 24 or so) Keening Stone and Traumatize are two other cards I would suggest replacing, if possible with Fraying Sanity and Archive Trap. Both would be cheaper, faster and over-all more efficient, I think. I'm also not too sure about the Nemesis of Reason... I think it might be too expensive and too easily removed I'm quite conflicted about Mind Sculpt and Tome Scour... I don't really think they work as well as they might seem in Modern, compare it to burn: if you're playing mill you have an enemy reserve of 60 to deal with, rather than 20 and while taking 5 cards out of a deck for 1 Mana might seem a lot, I don't think it really does much since you only hit once and that's that, once once scour has been used it's empty. I would suggest replacing them with permanents such as Curse of the Bloody Tome, Sphinx's Tutelage or, heck Jace's Erasure. That way you would only pay once and still mill every round.

TriusMalarky on New Player, help with a …

1 year ago

There are some okay creatures that are legal in a variety of formats the you can use. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar with enough land-dumping cards like Hour of Promise, Rampant Growth in Modern, and more.

Soulflayer build do work, their only weakness being that half their creatures are impossible to cast, so you're either using 'flayer or Unburial Rites(in Modern) to use them. IMO, use Gifts Ungiven with Rites and a ton of massive, heavily abilitied creatures to set up quick kills. Use cards like Tome Scour, Thought Scour etc.