Carrying on from the previous vote thread, it's time for the next batch of gold! Give me your Top 5 RW Borosand your Top 5 GU Simic Multiplayer cards! That's two separate top fives, OK? Got it?
The Rules 1. Cards up-to and including Dark Ascension can be chosen (i.e. no Shardless Agent or Gisela, Blade of Goldnight ). 2. Order matters - please give me 1-5 in order. This helps to determine the end rankings. 3. and separately, and only those colour combinations (so nothing with extra colours, like Rafiq of the Many ... they're later on). Hybrid counts. 4. Functional reprints count as the same card. 5. I'll close this off at noon Friday 28th September my time (+8hrs, so 4am Friday 28th September GMT), and kick the next one off immediately. I swear there are only two to go after this.
Here is are the lists of the card pools for Boros and Simic for your reference, sorted by Gatherer community rating, so the dross is at the bottom:
18 different cards received votes. Out of these, seven cards received multiple votes, and only five appeared in three or more lists.
This one was a fascinating vote. The seven voters picked seven different top cards. And no, Edric wasn't one of them. He's the first card to top a full vote without seeing top votes from somebody along the way.
I'm both instinctive and emotional. I value my own instincts and desires, and either ignore or crush anything that stands in my way; planning and foresight are unnecessary. At best, I'm determined and fierce; at worst, I'm headstrong and infantile.
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 Captain votes after the fact. 1. Edric, Spymaster of Trest - (Encourages other players to send their damage elsewhere. This might be better than the best enchantment ever printed Pernicious Deed ) 2. Sages of the Anima - (One of the better card draw cards. Doesn't allow you to search up a particular toolbox card like Momir , but out draws him) 3. Snakeform - (Removal is rather light in U/G, and this is a cantrip). 4. Coiling Oracle - (Accelerate, or cantrip. One of the best 2 drops). 5. Gilder Bairn - (Lets you pull off many of the tricks that Doubling Season does)
Edric, Spymaster of Trest is far and away, the best card available. This card is an excellent rattlesnake card, but not because it threatens your opponents not to tread on you, but by encouraging your opponents to tread on each other. This is very similar to how Telepathy works in multiplayer.
Sages of the Anima is a card drawing powerhouse, since most MP decks feature mostly creatures and fewer nonpermanent spells. Not as good as Rhystic Study , but it does combo well with Zur's Weirding .
On the list, but shouldn't be Overbeing of Myth , while being a decent beater and a drawing a card each turn, cannot compete with Rhystic Study . I can see OfM being a powerful drawing engine for green, which doesn't have a wide variety of ways of drawing many cards. Cold-Eyed Selkie draws more cards if you can pump it, and give it evasion, but is probably worse overall.
Spitting Image - The ability to copy anything at the cost of 6 CMC, and pitching a land is very good. I almost voted for this, and once again I can see how this ability is very impressive in a mono-green deck. As far as blue goes, any of blues countless steal effects are probably better (Treachery / Biting Tether / Dream Leash ). Spitting Image probably is better than Yavimaya's Embrace , but only due to the higher CMC.
Simic Sky Swallower - A big body, evasion, and untargetability. Blue already has access to this in Inkwell Leviathan , and green has made this kind of obsolete with Asceticism , or Multani, Maro-Sorcerer / Dungrove Elder / Lumberknot . Although none of those give evasion, Brawn is the standard way to grant the ability. I would honestly recommend any of these creatures, or Sturdy Hatchling in a blue/green deck over SSS. Sturdy Hatchling comes out earlier (turn 5), so it beats earlier.
There are some good honorable mentions. Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran is nearly as good as Glory of Warfare, but only works on the attack, and the Legendary status keeps his bonus from stacking. Goblin Legionnaire is a great 2 drop, and Bull Cerodon has two relevent abilities, ensuring that it makes an impact immediately and can defend for later turns. Brightflame is mana intensive, but could swing a game considerably. Lightning Helix is good, but Balefire Liege is everything that Lightning Helix wants to be.
Figure of Destiny - I don't like sinking 11 Mana into a creature, just to get it wiped off the board. Ajani Vengeant - His +1 ability isn't that great. I haven't been that impressed with planeswalkers in multiplayer. This just feels like an overpriced Lightning Helix .
Budget EDH:EDH on $20 a Deck. Join the Group Link has been defeated(X times) by Eyegorc in Dungeons 2(2x), 3(3x), and 6(3x).
Proliferate w/ 
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=100 Class: 
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