What's Bruvac's favorite beer brand? Miller

When I first got into Magic it was right around the time of the Zendikar block and I remember a buddy of mine sitting a couple of our friends down with me dumping out some cards out of a box and helping us make our first deck. The first card that caught my eye was Halimar Excavator the ally that has rally to mill people. Thus my first deck popped up that was centered around playing the excavator, copying it, and dumping allies to destroy peoples decks. Mill has a special place in my heart.

Friendly reminder that half the time Bruvac+Traumatize will leave your opponents with one card in deck.

I know mill is definitely a strange and difficult strategy to win with, but I definitely "milled" 500+ cards in one turn once... Abusing wheel effects and mill when people draw.

I think there needs to be a follow up episode regarding secondary/multiple strategies in decks and how to allot deck space for it, especially as mentioned at the end of this episode. Adding additional strategies tend to dilute the focus of decks right? Then it seems you start to get the problems that durdle-y decks have. I would wager the process the mill player goes through will be to incorporate this secondary/backup strategy, tweak the deck to start to suit this strategy more to the point where the mill becomes the secondary strategy, then will gradually morph the mill part into an enabler for what was previously the secondary strategy, ending up eliminating the mill portions altogether.

I'm coming here from watching a Casually Competitive MTG game where Bruvac did some real work.

The single target thing, combined with the shuffle titans, is why I really enjoyed playing Oona when Paradox Engine was legal; it was kind of like playing a storm deck in that you played a whole bunch of cantrips in order to keep activating Doubling Cube (and a copy of it thanks to Copy Artifact), so you got enough mana to rip someone's library straight into exile (because, yes, Oona puts things into exile), and that would hopefully give you enough fairies to take out everyone else when you untap. Since they banned Paradox Engine and unbanned Painter's Servant, it's lost the explosiveness and becomes more mindless in terms of who you mill. And that's why I'm building a Phenax deck once I get hold of Mr Grandiloquent. (Also, Fleet Swallower is Traumatize on a stick).

Seems like a possible way to scale mill would be a commander that gives you a massive payoff for milling the first opponent out.

The actual EDH mill commander is not just about milling mindlessly. The way to go is control/mill, which is more easy that using useless amount of 7-11 mana cost creatures. Slowly milling everyone, trying to draw as many cards as possible and get answers for what they still have in play. That's why Leyline of the void is mandatory, graveyard is ALWAYS a resourse at EDH. And if you play Phenax, don't use thoose gigantic vainilla creatures that have no static effect, get something in play that actually has an effect. Idk, jin gitaxias for example. (even if it's a 10 drop). And don't underestimate the power of wheels. Those cards are awesome at milling too. Get combos like Whispering Madness and Notion Thief online. You need to lock your oponents BEFORE you mill them. Like I said, it's all about control (and politics if you are playing Tasigur). You will have to build your deck to control spell heavy or creature heavy decks, depending on your local meta. Milling is fun and I have to say it's my favorite strategy, but it's just not a good one. Lots of fun, but if you are playing against turn 3-4 commanders you will get rekt, that's it :(

This episode being uploaded the week I'm retooling my oona is very blessed

Great stuff! Personally, what I always go back to for the mill/damage comparison are the 1 mana spells: Lightning Bolt(3dmg) vs Tome Scour(5cards). We don't run 1 of effects like lightning bolt in commander because they aren't efficient enough so your mill has to be not just equal, but better than the equivalent damage. You need to be able to reliably get more than 5 cards per mana you put into a card. For example a mind grind x=8 nets you ~72cards for 10 mana, or ~7 cards per mana spent and a total of 43 equivalent damage; which is why it's actually a good card. Meanwhile, I think teferi's tutelage is really bad most of the time because it will take 6 turns to passively mill the 15 cards it needs to hit to be worth the 3 mana. With a wheel it's solid, but without one it is too huge a waste of time for me to ever include.

Mill always reminded me of those levels in the old platformer, Mario-esque games where the stage keeps moving , killing you somehow if it ever catches up but ultimately just making you play a little tighter. What would the Mario equivalent of self mill be then...!?

The most important stats question is 'how many Persistent Petitioners is enough/too many'?

As someone who is trying to build Phenax this is super helpful for me. I went into this wanting to know more and I left this video with a lot of information that was important to know. Thanks guys.

I think this would make a great redux episode. Mill in 2022 is in a much better place than it was two years ago. Would love to hear what your thoughts are now that mill is getting some much needed R&D attention.

Another tangent question (and possible topic for a show): Given the social disruptions caused by COVID-19, sometimes we don't get to play against three other people at the same table. How do you adjust a deck's composition from 4 to 3 to 2 players when key cards affect the entire table at the same time? "Each opponent" sacrifices, loses health, discards, etc.

I'm right there with Matt about the feel bads when you lose a card to mill. Even if it's a basic land I'm usually devastated.

I just wish consuming aberrations was legendary and/or have a legend that changes the text of cards that says "target player mills" to "each opponent mills" but the latter might be too powerful

07:30 thank you for this graph

Phenax is one of my favorite commanders. My play group gets pretty salty when I win by milling someone out, but they are fine with being pinged to death. Funny how the mind works.

I loved how you mentioned kess cause my mill/wheel deck does have kess and the helm.

Video of the year... Milling needs to be made more competitive? Milling Cedh deck would be amazing

Watching this video now after Wise Mothman and Rad counters from the Fallout set has been revealed. Will be interesting to see how that will affect Mill strategies moving forward

Bruvac’s Favorite Musical is Thoroughly Modern *Millie*

I've been playing Grolnok the Omnivore with a mill strategy but focused on self-mill for a nice big exiled second hand. My opponents getting milled with group mill is just a bonus. So it is a strategy that you can make work depending on how you build it.

Hey my challenge the stats got picked.

I know Im late with this but one card many people miss for mill is folio of fancies. Hits multiple people but it draws everyone cards. But it punishes large hand sizes

thanks guys!

In standard I play a mill deck, winning 65% of games with its. Though one third of those winning aren't mill, mainly cause their running more 60 in the deck but that's where cards like Ashiok, Nightmare Muse really shine.

When my friends and I played regularly, I was the dimir girl/mill player of the group a lot of the time. We didn’t play commander at the time, but we would play four or five player free-for-alls most of the time. In my experience, milling only works in casual multiplayer via combos. These can be infinite combos (it was hard to pull off, but I loved combining mind crank, undead alchemist, and trepenation blade to kill a player in one turn), but in my experience, the simpler strategy is to put cards in your deck that can in some way translate milling into regular damage/life loss. Consuming aberration is probably the most obvious, but a more recent example is Dread Hound, a demon dog that causes opponents to lose life any time a creature card enters the graveyard. If you combo this with Traumatize (or worse, the New Cappena version that has the casualty rule) you can actually one shot more creature heavy decks, and this is more effective in Commander, where the standard deck-size is higher. Overall, I feel like the only way to make mill viable is to either rely on combos, or combine it with other strategies, usually some type of control. You also need to have ways to actually take advantage of graveyards, and ideally a way to prevent opponents using their graveyard as a resource. My mill decks won way more games through Jace’s Phantom (which I would consider a must-have for any blue mill deck) swinging for lethal than I have actually milling someone out; mill just isn’t a reliable wincon by itself, not unless you are willing to stuff your deck full of powerful and expensive tutors so you can reliably pull off some sort of combo every game, and even the you will still have a rough time of it.

My favorite mill commander is Anowan the ruin thief. He pumps up rogues and whatever they do mills the opponents based of how powerful the Rogues are. Equipment that gives power and toughness based off of cards in the graveyard. You never really mill out anyone, but you can decide to mill out one enemy and drop something like consuming aberration on the board, and swing at another player.

The few times I've played against a Mill player I've noticed that when they have the single player targeting spells they will focus on just 1 player until they are dead. Now while this is the best strategy it will make that player very salty. Also sometimes the player that they choose seems to be at random. At least do a threat assessment and pick the player most likely to combo first, or least likely to favor their graveyard. In the end I would actually prefer they play a combo that takes everyone out. It's on par with someone Cratorhoof-ing, or Lab Man-ing us, so why not. Let's shuffle up and play again!

Surely one of the biggest advantages of Mill, is that your opponents can't block it, and don't have a lot of ways to stop it. Also a shoutout for the planeswalker Ashiok, Dream Render which mills 4, then exiles each opponent's graveyard. And the static ability of preventing library searching is a bonus too.

I have a player in my group who enjoys mill from time to time. Because of him, I have decided to put many cards in my deck that give me, the player, hexproof. :)

Tbh, I think Grixis could make mill such a fuckin good archetype, but here’s the caveat- If you combine it with wheeling. Think about it, if you’re discarding you’re hand and having everyone draw 7 with a wheel, you’ve just milled the table for 21 for 3 mana. Arjun can also mill hella hard with a tutelage or psychic corrosion

"General Mills" is such an excellent Mill Deck name

I was apparently a monster because I enchanted Fraying Sanity on myself and one person saw me tap mana and screamed no as I Fractured Identity on Fraying Sanity.

I think its kinda funny you guys upload this the same night i finished my persistent petitioners deck :P

Auto includes, tree of perdition, jesters cap

I play a Mill themed Mimioplasm deck. It's real fun. You get to clone the best creatures in each graveyard.

Awesome ep!

I dunno, I feel like if a mill deck is setup well, it can pivot. I love my mill deck and have a couple two-card combos that can take a single person out instantly. I also have ways to bring those cards back into my hand. Then add it something like Rise of the Dark Realms and you can instantly pivot to unstoppable damage. That card alone is basically a winning condition, provided you can survive until then of course. I normally am going up against 4 - 5 other guys and they know my deck. Which means I peacock quickly, which is something I haven't figured out how to deal with yet.

Fun video. Thanks.

I just brewed up a lazav dimir mastermind deck thats more about graveyards matter than win by mill. I dont think winning by mill is consistently viable, but win by playing everyones best stuff seems more consistent

you know, this conversation comes up a lot for mill, and i understand that a meta is very much to be considered when brewing, but i personally feel that what is considered Mill is not a deck archetype, but mode of win. you can easily combo in to an infinite mill, you can aggro mill, heck, even control or aristocrat mill. this is the first issue, the second i perceive is the effect of mill. while life can be a resource, a deck has to be built to utilize it as such, but for almost all cases, the deck itself is the primary resource pool, so whittling down life totals does nothing more than get them closer to a loss, but milling removes components and resources from any deck. yes, eldrazi titans and such do throw a spanner in the works, but just as those cards exist to counter mills or discards, you need to have counters for anti-mill. exiling, stealing, locking down, all are viable options. alt-win cons should also be considered. going against a deck with eldrazi? good thing you packed your lab-man. keep a mechanized production around to put extra pressure on when every turn another copy of grindstone enters your battlefield (maybe use Saheeli to quicken the process). my best mill deck isnt even in blue or black! its a mono green elf deck that utilizes altar of the brood/dementia and hair-strung koto, generating 15 elf tokens, with a marwyn and those three cards out is a 60+ card mill. but at the end, if i am facing off against someone with anti-mill, i still have 15 elf tokens, and a marwyn that is at base a 16/16 so i can still win by turning creatures sideways. TLDR: i feel that mill is a viable build, but people view it as a build archetype and do not build an effective deck that protects itself against the obvious shortcomings.

Because of the defensive control aspect of mill I like to run stuff like fog bank or crawlspace in order to survive long enough to set up my win conditions.

For challenge the stats, wasn't vailstone amulet already featured in a past episode?

I feel like mill is in the same place that mono-red burn was at one point, and you could even argue that mill is blue’s version of burn. It’s good 1v1, but with more than one opponent it just really drops in power. We just need more ways to scale up to a multiplayer game and make it faster. Bruvac, Cut Your Losses, and Maddening Cacophony were good steps in that direction, but we need more mill payoffs IMO.

Yes, encourage us Necromancers!

I have an Arjun deck that can win by milling, or by pinging, or by Lab Man-ing, or by Locust-ing. Drawing cards is how it wins. Not uncommon for me to see my entire deck twice in a game. Very fun (for me)!

Sure I have to do more work, but every card you draw helps me and mill effects have very rare counters (which I play counters to, of course). Milling is that it is all but "unblockable." When I play Phenax I move my game plan forward with EVERY creature EVERY turn after he drops and you can't stop it.

i love this commander

I used to mill back in the day but people in my playgroup just started running feldon’s cane

I had a game last night with mill deck using artifacts...it took only four turns for him cast and infinite blue mana floating then self mill himself and filter his library while draining his life total until he finds the combo that mills all 3 of us infinitely and he wins the game.

An other nice combo is Undead Alchemist with Altar of the brood. It can’t activate itself, but won me a fair few games

I play a temur riku of two reflection clone/control/mill deck. I had 8 ruincrabs in a match last time. But i have other win options as well then just mill.

The really hard thing about mill is not all the obstacles I hear listed... no the real obstacle is if you can make things work for you then you will often get the chance to kill people with regular damage etc and that temptation is hard to resist.

I feel a strong urge to put more cards in my Jund dragon deck that I can cast from the graveyard.

I rock a Commander Mill Deck.

I once played against a Phenax player with my Ur-Dragon. I won the game by resolving Primeval's Glorious Rebirth with a Scourge of Valkas and Dragon Tempest in play.

Veilstone amulet doesn't actually grant hexproof, it is functionally very similar, but if you use an ability to swap control with an opponent, hexproof would protect that creature from your own spells, with veilstone you could trade and still target it. also, the things that remove hexproof won't get cards protected by veilstone. Overall, it's not a huge gripe, and it is a little bit of a nitpick, but it can be an important clarification. Feel free to comment disparagingly on how I'm a rules lawyer jerk

Came for the Magic, stayed for the dad jokes.

Mill is jank, with tons of weird combinations which work once in a blue moon. But if the jank works, oooh it's pretty. Milling a creature deck with GrimGrin and Undead alchemist, and then milling 2 others with a giant Grimgrin is perhaps the most fun one

The funniest game that I ever played mill is when I successfully milled out two opponents, but the third still had a few cards left in their library. I was at two life, and they had no creatures or other damage on the board. Well, this player had the “gawd I hate mill” attitude. However, because I was sitting next to them and they didn’t keep their hand covered, I could see their hand. I told them, “You can kill me, by the way.” They were like, “What?” They had Oko in their hand. 😂 After I told them, they turned a mana rock into an elk and attacked me for 3.

great video.

WoTC needs to make a mill card that targets all players and then has a flashback cost that doubles the amount of cards if it was cast from the graveyard

Patreon of the Nezumi & Mindcrank also combo. Another fun trick in my Phenax deck is Tree of Perdition 😈. Surprised Fleet Swallower wasn’t mentioned.

I like playing phanex, the deseaver god. I use a win combo with basalt monolith, isecrone Scepter, and dramatic Reversal. Tap your creatures and mill their decks, tap basalt monolith, and tap the Scepter to activate dramatic Reversal. Infinite mill

I use wheel of sun and moon to shut down mill or graveyard strategies.

Wasn't Veilstone Amulet already challenged in another episode?

I like playing mill because it is such a great challenge. My EDH mill deck is lead by Lady Sun because of how unlikely the idea of winning with mill actually is.

My win the game kill combo undead alchemists, grim corpseborn(it a legendary creature that you sac to untap) and the god of deception. You tap corpseborn if you hit any creatures you exile them and create a zombie sac zombie get +1+1 on corpseborn and untap tap again. It also deals with the shuffle dudes

Fog in green is called darkness... your welcome 🤣

This is some ESPN around the horn style show... I like it.

Just play self-mill, add some card draw in blue and black obvi, and you just have to focus on one person... yourself. Dig to win con, boop, win

I agree with all the negatives listed as challenges to overcome for milling. The issue raises another question or a refinement of the original: Rather than focus on thoroughly milling out an opponent (100 cards), consider what percentage of a deck (25 cards? 40? 65?) needs to be removed to cripple that player's own position?

i miss my standard Sphinx's Tutelage deck. alas that's all mill's ever gonna be good.

Can you Tormods Crypt the Eldrazzi shufflets?

How the mighty have fallen. Muldrotha, currently all the way down to 11th in the top commanders.

I feel like folks that play things like Propaganda in mill decks dont understand the virtues of things like Tainted Aether...or Ensnaring Bridge..or Portcullis..

Don't underrate the landmill effects. 3 times ~36 Lands with -3 times 3 for starter hand and concluding ramp you rather have to mill around 90 cards ;)

Hair-Strung Koto + Seedborn Muse Mindcrank + Throne of the God-Pharaoh + Leyline of the Void / Anafenza the Foremost Tokens

I think i havd the most interesting and unique deck I have not tried yet but it is esper mill

How would mill do in 1v1 commander

Everyone apparently: "Mill is one of the most hated things in commander." Me, who made a Circu mill deck (Which later evolved to a UB WHY CAN'T I HOLD ALL THESE COMMANDERS Mill where I periodically swap commanders currently being helmed by Ramirez DePietro) specifically because of how bad mill was and because it was funny: "Pardün?"

Me seeing mill getting a powerlift *Buys all the Gaeas blessings*

Horror mill is pretty viable now

I'm thinking two or more Ruin Crabs in play, with Reshape the Earth in your graveyard then casting Mnemonic Deluge, gg

I think I have 4 decks that can mill (all unique ways of doing so) and 3 more that could add it easily with 1-2 cards (still, without repeating), and I might do so. There are so many ways to mill - it's so easy. All you have to do is stay away from white, blue, black, and red.

Salt Mill > Pepper Mill

I'm here for the puns.

Every time I´ve played against mill, I am the one getting hit by it - and I hate it. It is usually when I play a deck where I don´t play grave yard recurssion.

mill is just fun

Arjun would like to: Cheat the system

I skipped the puns, but stayed for the maths.

Mindbreaker Sphinx + run more graveyard hate

First! Also, realy excited to watch this!

Gents, best leave the bad jokes and dad jokes to Matt.

First, keep up the good work!

My usual preferred mill strategies are based more around sabotage, rather than being a win condition. I enjoy top deck manipulation, like baiting someone by trying to destroy someone's Sensei's Divining Top, only for them to react by putting it on top of their library to draw a card, then I hit them with Dimir Machinations. Haldan-Pako partner brews can possibly steal other player's mill strategies, then start copying stuff if you kept Kalamax and the other spell copying shenanigans in your edited precon. Tutoring stuff to the top isn't safe anymore when Pako starts attacking. I don't really care for infinite combos, but I do feel okay with huge combos, like Mr. Grandiloquent and Traumatize. I generally ponder mill combos to be something of sneaky shenanigans, like Scrib Nibblers and Walking Atlas being good buddies, sharing a 1,000 Year Elixir with each other. I like the idea of weird mill, where people expect the infinite combos, but you're just pillow-forting like a boss and punishing them for abusing their own graveyard. You can have silly fun with the aforementioned strategies, and the addition of milling them and/or yourself out is just a couple of your win conditions. Wrexial is probably likely to be my main go-to for mill strategies, because there's so many good options and opportunities to steal your opponent's win conditions for yourself, with mill taking down the player with the win cons you didn't care to steal. As always, I would rather challenge myself to avoid infinite combos, because they just take too little work, while simultaneously being too vulnerable to removal and taking too long to happen. I would rather use those card slots to control the board and/or keep opponents from messing up my plans. Alternatively though, I don't mind stealing infinite combos from my opponents. Currently, Nekusar is actually my best mill deck, with players losing something much closer to their real life wits, instead of complete deprivation of their in-game wits. The group-slug brew draws aggro from other combo players, and causes the the control players to rethink their strategies.