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6 months ago ::
Dec 10, 2012 - 12:01PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Dec 14, 2011
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As the title may imply, I would like to make a deck using aether rift  to cheat creatures into play. It's a really rough draft for now, which is why I'd like some help. LANDS x 25 8 x mountain  10 x forest  4 x rootbound crag  3 x copperline gorge  CREATURES x 28 4 x birds of paradise  2 x genesis  3 x soul of the harvest  2 x terra stomper  1 x pelakka wurm  3 x worldspine wurm  3 x taurean mauler  2 x urabrask the hidden  1 x hamletback goliath  2 x bogardan hellkite  2 x kazuul, tyrant of the cliffs  3 x flametongue kavu  OTHER x 8 4 x aether rift 4 x triumph of ferocity  Any advice on the deck is appreciated. Red creatures are what gave me the most trouble, so I'm sorry if you think my choices are terrible. One thing I'm definitely looking for is ways to get creature back if people pay the life (right now I only have 2 genesis that can do it for me). Anyone think pitchstone wall  could be a good choice? Decent defender, and gets a guy back that I may want to try again for... Thanks for the help!!
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6 months ago ::
Dec 10, 2012 - 10:54PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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Here are a few considerations:
You could splash black for oversold cemetary  or Endbringer's revel  . Tortured existence  or malevolent awakening  are kind of like them, too. Phyrexian reclamation  is another one, but I'm sure that you'd prefer creatures to non-creature methods instead. Gravedigger  works just as well.
Eternal witness  will allow you to get any card back, which is good if you don't feel like splashing black.
Oracle of Mul-Daya  will filter your draws and make sure you get plenty of land.
Bloodbraid elf  will usually allow you to get an aether rift into play if you cut back on some 3 or less CMC spells.
You could also splash blue for copy enchantment  and/or paradox haze  if you want to maximize aether rift . Toss in damia, the stone sage  for that extra draw power. 
Getting the rift into play is the biggest concern for the deck when most of it is filled with super expensive creatures. Not to mention the fact that in multiplayer games, where people have life to spare, you are completely exposed early-game. As soon as you discard a random Urabrask or something, you'll be targetted just for being annoying. Therefore, setting up something early game is necessary.
...What that is I have no idea. Aside from just using aether rift in an already seamless deck, kind of like adding painful quandry  to a deck just because it looks fun, I've been stuck trying to think of ways to abuse aether rift .
In any case, I hope this helped in some way. Good luck! 
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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6 months ago ::
Dec 10, 2012 - 11:01PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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one card I like is deadwood treefolk 
Don't be too smart to have fun
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6 months ago ::
Dec 11, 2012 - 6:45AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Dec 14, 2011
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@Keino I would like to avoid splashing a color, but I do understand that sometimes that may not work out. Though the witness  may be very helpful indeed. If anything, I thought about splashing blue for more draw power  . Oracle of Mul daya  is definitely a consideration. I know what you're saying about the early game, and it may be good for me to pack more 4-6 costing guys in there, since 12 of my 28 creature cost between 7-11. I think maybe I focused too much on "good fatties" and not so much on "relevent creatures" @morticianjohn the treefolk might be a good alternative to witness, but he may just be a placeholder until I get the witnesses to fill the slots  Thanks for the advice so far guys!
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