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1. The fact that they removed the reserve list in your hypothetical would have a massive effect on the final price. Folks (other than collectors where the age and originality matters) are just not going to pay the same amount for a card they know can get reprinted.

2. Your data is flawed--only the Alpha Lotuses are above $100,000; the other printings still run $10,000 or more, but that is still a massive drop and really should have been mentioned in your post.

3. There are huge numbers of cards printed in a Standard set. Even the best Standard cards ever printed in the modern era are unlikely to top $100.00 simply due to the size of the printings.

4. As Scytec mentioned, the card isn't all that useful. It can be played in Vintage and CanLander, but that's really it for popular formats. The modern run cards that get rather pricey are those where Vintage, Modern, Standard, Legacy, and Commander all want copies of the card.

5. Your question doesn't really make sense, since you do not really take into account how much time has elapsed since your hypothetical set run.

6. Black Lotus is not expensive because of its power level (power level means nothing if you can't play the card)--it is expensive because of its rarity, notoriety, and reputation as a collector's item.

All around it is impossible to predict the answer to your question--too many variables at play. That said, we can fairly definitively say your estimates are way too high--such numbers would be unprecedented for a modern-era set.

I have not play tested mono-blue mill, but my gut tells me it is going to be both slower and more fragile than Dimir mill. For speed, you lose out on Glimpse the Unthinkable - Glimpse is a hyper-efficient card that is super easy to pop off. Might some of the three mana spells hit for more mill, particularly the unique-to-mono-Blue Sanity Grinding? Yes. But that consistent ten at two mana is utterly fantastic - the difference between two and three mana is pretty big in Mill. A two mana spell on turn 4 is often going to mean you get to both mill your opponent and have mana for another mill spell or interaction. That can be pretty big and swing entire games.

With regards to fragility, Drown in the Loch is just such a good card, and is better than Counterspell in all but the second turn.

I agree with Grubbernaut’s post on Haunting Echoes - it is a “win more” card that is a dead draw early and leaves you open to being countered later. By the time you generate five mana, you don’t want to be looking at “can I remove all their deck’s remaining threats?” - you want to be looking at “how do I get rid of those last couple cards?”

I will also note that, by the time you are at five mana, they will almost certainly have 20+ cards in their graveyard. That’s when you want to be dropping a Visions of Beyond, drawing three, then blasting them with a burn spell or two. Tapping down one of your five lands for a Visions, then drawing into a Haunting Echoes and not being able to play it is also going to be a dead draw.

That's correct and why I put the word burn in quotes. The best way to think of Modern Mill is as an aggressive burn deck--functionally it plays much the same; it is a bit of a glass cannon (though less so thanks to Drown in the Loch) that tries to "burn" the library, not the life total.

Tasha's Hideous Laughter, mentioned by abby315 above, is a solid option. Lots of Modern decks have a very low curve, so you can often hit a large portion of the opponent's deck. Probably worth giving a try.

I think you can also cut Haunting Echoes--by the time you have five lands, you are really going to want to focus on "burn" as much as possible. Surgical extraction generally gets the job done--it might not be as flashy, but it will hit what you need to for the low cost of two life.

For cutting, you can go to your local library--they will probably have one of the large paper cutters that can do long cuts really quickly, usually going through multiple pages at once.

As for the rest, that is going to depend on what quality and thickness of paper you use.

Your deck is missing 3x Field of Ruin. Field is an incredibly powerful card in Mill--it forces them to search their library allowing you to enable Archive Trap (while also getting some crab triggers). Along with that change I would cut Counterspell and move Archive Trap to the mainboard.

You also have too few fetch lands for 8-Crab to really shine, and that is probably a large part of why you feel the deck moves a bit slower than you would like. That is one of the downsides to the current mill deck--you really need to spend a lot on fetches to get it to sing.

Do you happen to have a deck list? I would be curious to see what you are using for your basis.

Right now, I think the best Modern mill deck you can run is 8-Crab. 4x Hedron Crab, 4x Ruin Crab, a bunch of fetch lands to enable your crabs, and then Drown, Visions, and some “burn” spells and some removal to finish off the deck.

I also know some folks who have been having decent success splashing into Green for a few copies ofAssassin's Trophy - since the deck should run a lot of fetches for your crabs, one can splash into green with one or two copies of Overgrown Tomb and no other green lands relatively easily.

I will also note there are a few cards which are traps - they look like they might be good for mill, but are not. Jace's Phantasm is one of those cards - you are not trying to hit their life total, so you don’t need an attacker. If you feel you need a blocker due to your meta, you’re better off with Ensnaring Bridge than a single 5/5 with flying.

Fraying Sanity is another card that gets tossed around a lot as a suggestion. Realistically, I don’t think Sanity does much for Mill - you want to focus on burning your opponent as quickly as possible, and Sanity comes down at the critical turn 3 point. It does no burn for turn (other than doubling what your crabs might have done), and usually is more of a “win more” card than a “this wins you games” card. By that I mean any game it helps you win, you likely could have won with something else in those card slots, but it doesn’t do much to let you win games you would otherwise lose.

This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum (auto-generated comment)

I am guessing to indicate she is not legal in Standard, Modern, Historic, etc..

She is only available in Set Boosters and Collector Boosters. Yes, this is kind of dumb, especially for something (a curse commander) players have been clamoring for with a fair degree of regularity.

There is already a thread discussing this change. It can be found here.

In the interest of preventing redundancy, I am closing this thread down and directing users to the existing thread.

I recommend reading Charlotte's (a member of the CAG) article on the Golos ban. She does a good job explaining the RC's thought process and why the decision was made, even if said decision seems a bit counter-intuitive. Here is the link. It is a fairly short article, so, rather than summarize it, I will just suggest reading the Golos portion in full (and the Worldfire one if interested in that issue).

I have said it before and I will say it again--part of the problem with banned and restricted announcements is how Sheldon writes them. A combination of English not being his first language and his rather dismissive attitude toward large segments of the community result in banned and restricted announcements that come off as out-of-touch, creating confusion and problems where none need exist.

There “currently” being fewer phasing effects is the exact point I was making - we already have plenty of blink effects for the decks that need blink effects. Wizards has some catch-up to do if they want phasing to be viable in the decks that want it.

They are not really “clever” ways of triggering ETBs - they’ve been a staple for ages and there are plenty of them. It is a design space that has been thoroughly explored and doesn’t need much additional support for Modern and Eternal formats.

Phasing in this manner has not been explored, meaning they have plenty of design space to try new things. By using phasing currently, they can both print more powerful ETB effects in Standard (which is good for everyone) and give new tech to Modern/Eternal formats that does not previously exist and which fills a void that needs filling (a way to blink your creature out of harms way without losing its auras, equipment, or counters).

It would be more accurate to say that Terminate would have no tangible effect upon resolution, rather than “null and void” (it could still trigger other effects), but in spirit you have it correct.

Ravnica clearly has an afterlife, since your spirit can be bound to the Orzhov instead of going on its natural progression.

Dominaria has an underworld, as Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar lived there and created its cookbook.

Kaldheim has its afterlife discussed in detail, especially as it relates to the Valkyrie who take souls where they belong.

Souls on Innistrad can become spirits - the disturb mechanic in the upcoming set illustrates this.

To add one additional step to Rhadamanthus's post, you will also need some way to kill the Walking Ballista the first time to engage the loop and kick off the infinite enter the battlefield effects--Ballista will not have any counters when it enters due to Victimize, so it cannot independently kill itself to begin the loop of undying.

In the future, please remember to hit the green "Mark as Answer" button to indicate your question was resolved. Since this question ahs been answered for a couple of days without any pending follow-ups, I have gone ahead and marked an answer on your behalf.

In the future, please remember to hit the green "Mark as Answer" button to indicate your question was resolved. Since this question ahs been answered for a couple of days without any pending follow-ups, I have gone ahead and marked an answer on your behalf.