Yesterday was Modern Monday (on Tuesday) and, with our new format, we now stream the matches live on my Twitch channel on Monday, alerting readers of the deck we’ll be playing and of the stream itself in an article here on NumotGaming.
Then, on the following Tuesday (or Wednesday this week), we post the matches for those who missed them along with our thoughts in article form.
This week we took a look at a mill deck in Modern. The deck was played by Magic Online user salvagers to a 5-0 finish in a Modern League. One pretty sweet addition to the Modern mill frame is that of Manic Scribe, straight from Shadows over Innistrad. We even have Jace’s Phantasm in this version as an alternate win condition. Take a look!
Creatures
4 Hedron Crab
4 Jace’s Phantasm
4 Manic Scribe
Spells
4 Archive Trap
3 Crypt Incursion
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Mesmeric Orb
3 Mind Funeral
4 Visions of Beyond
Lands
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Flooded Strand
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
3 Shelldock Isle
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Sideboard
1 Crypt Incursion
3 Extirpate
3 Profane Memento
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Set Adrift
3 Surgical Extraction
I’ve played mill decks before for Modern Monday, but usually they add white for things like Path to Exile which not only doubles as removal, but also forces the opponent to shuffle their deck for our Archive Traps. I was pretty curious how the deck would fare being solely blue and black, so I was eager to find out.
Well, what can we say about this list? As I said in the videos, every time a deck like this manages a 5-0 finish, I’m incredibly intrigued. As usual, this isn’t a deck I see as a lost cause, but one that could definitely use a little tweaking. For one thing, we kind of need ways to get rid of creatures, or prevent ourselves from dying. Unfortunately, Modern is a pretty hostile format and milling about 53 cards isn’t easy, especially when the opponent has an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in their deck somewhere.
That being said, the deck was still pretty interesting, but I’m not sure if it’s as good without the missing white component. We definitely need some kind of way to deal with opposing threats, which this deck seems to lack. Without any creatures or removal, we kind of just let our opponents do their thing while we try to mill them out. As you can imagine, this might not always work. I also wonder if the mill strategy is strong enough as-is and might not need some supplementing with cards like Breaking//Entering. If we’re able to fuse it, this also gives us a potential win condition in the late game.
I love trying out new mill strategies in Modern, but they always fall just a little bit short. This time was no exception unfortunately. As I always say, with a little tweaking this might be a solid strategy, but as of now…I’m not so sure. But kudos to salvagers for going 5-0!
Frank Lepore
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