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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 3:14PM
#1
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So I'm building a deck to utilize Psychogenic Probe  . Here's what I have so far: 4 x Cosi's Trickster  4 x Soldier of Fortune  4 x Delver of Secrets  ___ 4 x Psychic Surgery  2 x Mana Leak  2 x Dream Fracture  2 x Counterspell  4 x Disperse  4 x Praetor's Grasp  2 x Unsummon  4 x Lightning Bolt  4 x Ponder  ___ 4 x Psychogenic Probe I'm thinking of swapping 2 Psychic Surgery for 2 Maralen of the Mornsong  , but my main concern is that I will have to take the 3 damage, plus however many probes I might have out. I'm also not a huge fan of Psychic Surgery because I already have a mill deck.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 4:02PM
#2
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Read the card wrong. ignore this
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 4:51PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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HOW TO AUTOCARD! When posting in a text box, type [c ]Plains[/c] to make your post show Plains  . Are you making a casual mill deck? Please read.
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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.
Name:  Keino
 =100 Class: 
 x 236 Diety: 
 125/200
Weapon: Staff of Fire ( =2x dmg/ =4+3 dmg)
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 5:25PM
#4
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Ah. I didn't think of it like that. That makes complete sense. As for lands, I'm looking at going with: 8 Islands 4 Mountain 4 Shimmering Grotto  (to play the exiled cards) 2 Crumbling Necropolis  2 Swamp 2 Evolving WIlds 
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 7:53PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2008
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Hmmmm Think of adding Ghost Quarter  Extract  is probably too narrow, but maybe Surgical Extraction  ? Really any of the extraction cards could be useful here, too bad Path to Exile  is out of color. Void Stalker  ?
"I think me going Bang bang bang I win is pretty intuitive" Mafia Record: Wouldn't you like to know? 2011 Mafia Awards - Mastermind of the Year mymoment
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 8:26PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Nov 27, 2011
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Portent  , Winds of Change  , Chaos Warp  , Whirlpool Warrior  , Molten Psyche  , Lantern of Insight  , Jester's Cap  , Jester's Mask  ,. Visions  with Path if you splash white. I thought about the same deck for a while, if you couldn't tell. :P I like Ghost Quarter and Void Stalker here.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 15, 2012 - 10:26PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jan 28, 2011
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11 months ago ::
Jul 16, 2012 - 12:36AM
#8
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I like Void Stalker , but my problem is that it would trigger the probe on my end. I'm also looking at maybe Grinning Totem  , but the cost is off-putting. Here's the revised mana base with a few cards (Chaos Warp and Ghost Quarter) 4 x Cosi's Trickster 4 x Soldier of Fortune 4 x Delver of Secrets ___ 4 x Psychic Surgery 2 x Mana Leak 2 x Dream Fracture 2 x Counterspell 2 x Disperse 4 x Praetor's Grasp 2 x Unsummon 2 x Chaos Warp 4 x Lightning Bolt 4 x Ponder ___ 4 x Psychogenic Probe ___ 4 x Ghost Quarter 6 x Islands  4 x Mountain  2 x Swamp  2 x Evolving Wilds  4 x Exotic Orchard 
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11 months ago ::
Jul 16, 2012 - 3:20AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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Why the Evolving Wilds ? They'll trigger the probes on your end. I know you need some sort of versatile land in a 3-colour deck, but I'd use Crumbling Necropolis instead. It gives you the same effect as Evolving Wilds in terms of mana but with a bit of added versatility and without the shuffle.
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