Artifacts are wonderful tools, what with the colorless mana and ability to magnify or shore up strategies of specific decks. Beyond that, however, are the universally useful artifacts that one always reaches for, regardless of deck strategy.
These aren't seen in many of my decklists, though, due to my owning limited quantities of each and not wanting to disable decks nor float cards between decks. Still, if I had them, they would be run regularly.
What artifacts makes up your regular choices?
I would consult the MP guide to playing colorless, but it has yet to be written.
Cheers!
A shout out to Gaming Grounds in Kent, Ohio and Gamers N Geeks in Mobile, Alabama.
www.zombiehunters.org for all your preparation needs.
http://shtfschool.com/ - why prepping is useful, from one who has been there.
I'm both selfish and rational. I'm scheming, secretive and manipulative; I use knowledge as a tool for personal gain, and in turn obtaining more knowledge. At best, I am mysterious and stealthy; at worst, I am distrustful and opportunistic.
Before they banned the format out of existence, I was a proud supporter of Modern.
I'm sort of surprised no one has mentioned Sensei's Divining Top yet... The Top and it's newer cousin, Crystal Ball are both really phenomenal at getting the draws you need when you need them. The Ball is in some ways better than the top in that it can put late-game lands permanently at the bottom of your library, but the Top is one of the absolute best artifacts in my opinion.
I'm sort of surprised no one has mentioned Sensei's Divining Top yet... The Top and it's newer cousin, Crystal Ball are both really phenomenal at getting the draws you need when you need them. The Ball is in some ways better than the top in that it can put late-game lands permanently at the bottom of your library, but the Top is one of the absolute best artifacts in my opinion.
I'm unsure about Elixir of Immortality , as the only reason why I've been experimenting with it (as a singleton) lately is as a way to prevent self-mill in a couple control decks of mine that nearly kill me due to card draw and game length. In general, though, the life-gain would be, if nothing else, decent in colors not used to getting it and the reshuffle effect can be very nice depending on the situation.
Thousand-Year Elixir looks like it would be pretty awsome, although I've yet to see it in action.
"Do not concern yourself with my origin, my race, or my ancestry. Seek my record in the pits, and then make your wager." --Arcanis the Omnipotent
I'm both selfish and rational. I'm scheming, secretive and manipulative; I use knowledge as a tool for personal gain, and in turn obtaining more knowledge. At best, I am mysterious and stealthy; at worst, I am distrustful and opportunistic.
Before they banned the format out of existence, I was a proud supporter of Modern.
Thanks to all that posted so far, particularly Cathaldus.
No problem.
My one question, though, is if you were talking about Artifacts in particular, or colorless cards as a whole? In other words, were you talking about cards that could potentially go into any deck, or artifacts that could (potentially) only go in decks of certain colors?
"Do not concern yourself with my origin, my race, or my ancestry. Seek my record in the pits, and then make your wager." --Arcanis the Omnipotent
I'm both selfish and rational. I'm scheming, secretive and manipulative; I use knowledge as a tool for personal gain, and in turn obtaining more knowledge. At best, I am mysterious and stealthy; at worst, I am distrustful and opportunistic.
Before they banned the format out of existence, I was a proud supporter of Modern.
HOW TO AUTOCARD! When posting in a text box, type [c]Plains[/c] to make your post showPlains . Are you making a casual mill deck? Please read.Show
Control is the key of a mill deck. You should free up your mana as much as possible so that you can respond to whatever your opponent is doing. Having some way to remove threats, both real and percieved, is necessary to survival. Real threats are those that are already on the field, and are something a simple unsummon or doom blade can remove. Percieved threats are those that aren't on the field, something a simple duress or counterspell can deal with. Controlling the board will allow your mill deck to continuously perform, if you use permanent style mill, that is.
One-Shot Mill spells are something you should avoid. You can toss tome scour s at your opponent until your hand runs out, but that isn't going to be enough to mill them to death. With 1-shot mill spells, like tome scour , you have to treat them like burn spells. Therefore, the only "good" 1-shot mill spells are sanity grinding (in the right deck) and mind funeral . Try to find more permanent styles of milling, like memory erosion , hedron crab , and curse of the bloody tome , so that you don't have to waste your mana each turn doing something that those permanents can do with a single mana/turn investment. Keeping your mana open allows you to respond with control elements.
Traumatize Rant. Traumatize is a terrible card for a multitude of reasons. First, it costs 5 to cast, which is a large investment for a mill deck. Milling half a library sounds neat, but if you do the math, it really isn't that much. An average 60 card deck starts with drawing 7 cards. Then, barring any draw spells on their end, or ramp on yours, 5 turns will go by, where they draw 5 more cards, leaving 48 in the deck. Unless they had a deck with more than 60 cards, or you ramped it out, the most you'll ever mill with a single Traumatize on turn 5 is 24 cards. That's not too shabby, but hang on, there's more! If they drew any additional cards or if they were milled before turn 5, that number will be much lower. In addition, any more Traumatize's you draw will only mill less and less as the game goes on...which is the point of a mill deck. My whole point on Traumatize is the it is NOT worth the 5 mana investment, not even with haunting echoes . You can mill more than 24 before turn 5...which you can then cast the echoes.
If you look at a mill deck like a burn deck, you'll notice that it takes longer to win with mill than with burn. For example, lightning bolt costs 1 and does 3 out of the 20 damage needed to win (barring any lifegain or damage prevention). For mill, that same investment of 1 would have to mill 9 cards out of an average 60 card deck to be the equivilent of lightning bolt . The problem is that there is no mill card that can do that...except hedron crab , over a period of time. The initial investment of 1 will pay off in 3 more land drops to make the crab equal to a bolt. However, the crab nets you more mill beyond those 3 land drops, making it better as the game draws on. Other cards, like curse of the bloody tome , are excellent ways of milling an opponent because the initial investment of is all you have to pay in order to put your opponent on a clock. All you have to do is stay alive, which is the true goal of a mill strategy.
There are other ideas for mill decks that are specific to certain types of strategies. Combo mill decks can mill an entire player's library out from under them. Secondary mill strategies are usually tied to another strategy, like drowner of secrets in a merfolk deck, or halimar excavator in an ally deck. Milling can be done in certain decks that are able to ramp out enough mana to make use of the higher costing mill spells, like using 16 x post to pay for X on sands of delirium or for ambassador laquatus . Multiplayer mill decks are even tougher to build, but can be done. Being a slower environment[/c], it is easier to ramp in multiplayer, allowing for big X spells, like mind grind , to be useful. Consuming aberration is another star player. The more straightforward strategy is to use mesmeric orb and dreamborn muse while being the only deck at the table that can deal with it . There are always new strategies coming out with each new set, so check gatherer for any new mill cards that you find to be the most fun for you!
Now you can say that you haven't fallen into the trap that most new players fall into when they build their first mill deck!
: Order, Law, Faith. : Knowledge, Artifice, Control. : Corruption, Death, Self-Interest. : Freedom, Destruction, Victory. : Nature, Growth, Life. : Progressive, but too controlling. : Focused, but short sighted. : Skilled, but hypocritical. : Unified, but without a sense of self. : Cunning, but devious. : Inquisitive, but incautious. : Rational, but impulsive. : Powerful, but spiteful. : Instinctive, but selfish. : Fearless, but reckless.
The only thing that really keeps them from being very good is that they're objectively worse than Thran Dynamo , which is easy to find now with Archenemy out (although the original printing of Thran Dynamo is admittedly expensive for what it does, and Archenemy's not worth it if you just want the one card).
"Do not concern yourself with my origin, my race, or my ancestry. Seek my record in the pits, and then make your wager." --Arcanis the Omnipotent
I'm both selfish and rational. I'm scheming, secretive and manipulative; I use knowledge as a tool for personal gain, and in turn obtaining more knowledge. At best, I am mysterious and stealthy; at worst, I am distrustful and opportunistic.
Before they banned the format out of existence, I was a proud supporter of Modern.
: Order, Law, Faith.
: Knowledge, Artifice, Control.
: Corruption, Death, Self-Interest.
: Freedom, Destruction, Victory.
: Nature, Growth, Life.
Keino
=100 Class: 
x 236 Diety: 
125/200 
=2x
dmg/
=4
dmg)