Phenax EDH Mill
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 56 | 68 COMMENTS | 130641 VIEWS | IN 68 FOLDERS
BFZ Cuts/Adds —Oct. 12, 2015
I cut Grimoire Thief and Forced Fruition (sadly) for Sire of Stagnation and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I want to add Sphinx's Tutelage but I can't seem to justify it in my meta because nobody runs any mono-colored decks. Please let me know of any cards from the last couple sets that deserve a spot. I really appreciate any help and comments I can get.
Traumatize was in the deck, but it was cut purely because I play 4-player almost exclusively. Cutting one guy's deck in half is a ton of fun, but it paints a target on your back really quickly. 1v1 it definitely goes in the deck, but playing against three people it draws too much aggro for what it does.
December 8, 2014 8:38 p.m.
SteelNinja says... #4
Have you considered Altar of the Brood? I run it in my Phenax build and it works wonders, as well as draws out their early artifact hate to leave room for better stuff when you aren't dropping as many permanents per turn anyway.
December 29, 2014 1:11 p.m.
Altar of the Brood seems like a fun card to add, I just honestly don't know what I could cut for it. Maybe it could replace Mesmeric Orb or something, since they have similar jobs. I'll definitely give it some thought. Thanks for the suggestion SteelNinja.
December 29, 2014 6:22 p.m.
Honestly, I recommend having both, if only for the redundancy. I do in my mill deck, Welcome to the Undercity. I you need cuts, I recommend lowering your curve a bit. It's a bit high for the number of lands you're running. Only 35 lands, 1 rock and a 5 CMC general/ 4.0 average CMC, sounds like a recipe for a very slow and inconsistent game to me. Maybe cut Rewind. You won't want to keep 4 lands open for a 'free' counter. Also to help smooth out the mana base, I recommend the Dimir Signet, or Thran Dynamo or Worn Powerstone.
Speaking from experience, you will want a way to make your opponents discard or cycle hands when Forced Fruition is in play. They will just overrun you with threats and the like. Cards like Whispering Madness and Jace's Archivist help with that. Some decks want to draw, like Prime Speaker Zegana Forced Fruition can help many draw decks/combo decks go off. Just a word of warning.
Duskmantle Guildmage combos with Mindcrank. I think you used to have it, wondering why it was removed.
All in all good deck. My main concern was the mana base. With 35 total lands, 2 of which don't produce mana, the curve looks very unstable.
December 30, 2014 11:30 a.m.
Thanks for the help, ecmmyers and SteelNinja.I've added Thran Dynamo, Whispering Madness, and Altar of the Brood. I cut Rewind (expensive when other decks are running counters as well), Avatar of Woe,and Riddlekeeper (I tend to lose to one crazy strong creature as opposed to many small ones). Thanks to everyone who has commented, and keep the help coming please!
January 24, 2015 6:47 p.m.
Cassaveron says... #8
Late game, Ghastly Conscription could come in handy for Phenax, God of Deception 's ability to tap creatures, with each card from whichever graveyard you use being manifested into a 2/2 creature. Couple that with Altar of the Brood and that's a good portion of the deck gone. However, with its cmc of 7 that might not be a great fit for a deck that focuses on a primary cmc of 4. Just a suggestion. :)
May 10, 2015 9:41 p.m.
Orpheus124 says... #9
More talk on Altar of the Brood--I know you said you're avoiding infinite combos, but Undead Alchemist is good with it; everytime opponents mill, if there's a creature, exiled, you get a zombie. With Altar, when you get a zombie, they mill. If you hit a creature, you get a zombie, they mill. It's fun, but can make for bad blood. I like what I see! +1
I have a mill deck at Ravnica Horror Story: Asylum if you'd like to check it out.
June 3, 2015 3:40 p.m.
It does pretty well, actually. I can consistently mill out at least one person and get the other two pretty low. It doesn't have a super high win percentage, though, because it takes a lot to mill out 3 100 card libraries, and there's a lot of time for the other guys to get back in the game. It's a ton of fun to play as long as you aren't one of those people that needs to win every game. Also, Mind Grind is a serious late game mvp. Milling everyone to 11 land after they've ramped is way satisfying.
Allimand says... #1
what the... where is Traumatize?
December 8, 2014 8:08 p.m.