A Style for Each – Mill

Sub Themes

Hi there fellow EDH-ers. For a fast recap of the last article, we talked about the Sub Theme Stax or Prison which is along the same line as Sub Theme Land-D, is one of the most annoying unpopular Sub Theme. At achieving the Sub Theme main goal, you test out everyone patience. Various kinds of ways are used to lock down opponents, with you being the one who initialized the lock, well-prepared and spared from it. The effectiveness of the Sub Theme is also its weakness. EDH is played with poli4ics. Anyone who is deemed too dangerous and annoying to everyone will always be aim first, like a last boss character, and to be fought by everyone. For today article we shall look at a Sub Theme which focuses on killing your opponents by attacking the library, named Mill, instead of hacking at the Life point.

 

Pros:

Before we begin, let us give you a little back history of the namesake of this Sub Theme. Milling is named so due to Millstone. Being the first Artifact to attack libraries, subsequent cards which do the same thing will all group as milling. With the increased numbers of cards thereafter, milling had become a viable theme, winning tournaments sometimes and all. The main game plan for this Sub Theme as mentioned is to attack the libraries of your opponents, making them unable to draw from their libraries and thus losing the game due to that. While easily achieved in normal variant, where you only have to deal with decks with only 60 cards, it is a total different ball game in EDH. Normal ways used in normal variant is not as effective here in EDH, as you only mill a few cards. The true power of this Sub Theme is that you are working to set up a combo which would instantly mill one or two opponents one short rather than a few cards each time. So to speak, Sub Theme Mill is like a combo which you packed into your decks to kill when you draw it. Since combos in EDH are usually deadly and big, life points is usually not taken into consideration as you work towards achieving your combo. Tables could be turned in an instance once you had achieved your combo, sometimes taking out all opponents at the same time. Some combos for example are as follows:-

• Altar of Dementia + Karmic Guide + Reveillark – Start with either one Creature in the graveyard and recur the other (Karmic Guide recurs Reveillark when it enters the battlefield; Reveillark recurs Karmic Guide when it leaves the battlefield). Sacrifice either Karmic Guide or Reveillark with Altar of Dementia. Rinse and repeat the whole process to mill everyone

• Brain Freeze + Aluren + Aven Riftwatcher – Aluren makes Creature spells 3cc or less free to cast. Cast Aven Riftwatcher for free due to that and bounce itself with its own Enter The Battlefield effect. Rinse and repeat till you have enough Storm count, then cast Brain Freeze to mill everyone. Combo also gives you infinite life
• Drowner of Secrets / Hair-Strung Koto + Stonybrook Schoolmaster + Intruder Alarm – Using Drowner of Secrets or Hair-Strung Koto to mill your opponents by tapping Stonybrook Schoolmaster. Tapping of the Stonybrook Schoolmaster would give you a Merfolk Wizard Creature token. Then with that Creature token entering the battlefield, all Creatures are untapped due to Intruder Alarm. Rinse and repeat the whole process to mill everyone.
• Grinding Station + Summoning Station + Blasting Station + Salvaging Station – An infinite loop by itself which could kill either by milling (Grinding Station) or damage (Blasting Station), whichever is achieved first. By adding any noncreature Artifact of 1 cc or less to the mix to begin the combo, the activation of each of the combo pieces will then untap each other, creating an infinite loop. The whole process goes as follows. Sacrifice noncreature Artifact of 1 cc or less with Grinding Station, an Artifact goes to graveyard from battlefield, Summoning Station untaps; activate Summoning Station, Pincher Creature token enters the battlefield, Blasting Station untaps; activate Blasting Station using the Pincher token, Creatures goes to graveyard from battlefield, Salvaging Station untaps; activate Salvaging Station to bring back noncreature Artifact of 1 cc or less to the battlefield, an Artifact enters the battlefield, Grinding Station untaps; rinse and repeat whole process until either you had deal enough damage to kill your opponents or mill their libraries out
• Hair-Strung Koto + Squirrel Nest + Dryad Arbor + Intruder Alarm – Enchant Dryad Arbor with Squirrel Nest. This would untap Dryad Arbor each time you make a Squirrel token due to Intruder Alarm. Tap those tokens with Hair-Strung Koto to mill everyone. Combo could be replaced with many various combina4ions but mainly abusing Hair-Strung Koto and Intruder Alarm. Eg. of the various combinations are; Hair-Strung Koto + Presence of Gond + any Creature that it could enchanted + Intruder Alarm; or Hair-Strung Koto + Squirrel Nest + any Land + Intruder Alarm + any Land animator effects which could make the enchanted Land a Creature to untap along with the other Creatures
• Screeching Sliver + Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes – A mill engine which could be included into an already powerful Sliver deck. Create infinite Sliver tokens with Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes and use those Sliver tokens afterwards to mill everyone courtesy of Screeching Sliver. Firewake Sliver; Heart Sliver; and Reflex Sliver could be added into the mix to allow mill to be execute at the same time the combo is activated. This combo set is powerful as you could also win games just by having Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes to beatdown all opponents
• Tunnel Vision + Jace, the Mind Sculptor – Use Jace, the Mind Sculptor to look at the top card of target player’s library and then put it on the bottom, after which you would name and mill the whole library with Tunnel Vision as cards are restricted to only one per deck. This combo mill only one player per execution of combo. Alternately other cards could also be used in place of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, like below:-

  Condemn	Set up the combo by putting target attacking Creature on the bottom of its owner’s library
  Hinder	Counters a spell and then put it on the bottom of that opponent’s library to set up the combo
  Sealed Fate	Look at top X cards of opponent’s library. Note to be taken that X has to be at least 2 as you are exiling one card before you put the rest on the top of that library
  Spin into Myth	Set up the combo by using Fateseal to put the target Creature to the bottom of its owner’s library. Spell could also be used as a way to deal with opposing Commander

• Whetstone + Palinchron + High Tide – Cast High Tide to let all Islands produce one more mana whenever it is tapped for mana, then tap seven Islands for a total of fourteen Blue mana, use seven of it to cast Palinchron which would let you untap seven Lands, use four more of those mana to bounce Palinchron back to your hand, tap your Islands to recast Palinchron. Take note that you could also cast High Tide after you cast Palinchron before you use its ability to bounce itself back to your hand. Rinse and repeat the whole process till you get your desired amount of mana then use Whetstone to mill everyone.

 

Although with the above said, milling is not just restricted to combo. It could also be employ as a form of disruption, especially against Tutors which put the searched card on the top of the library instead of directly into the hand. The benefits of milling is largely due to the fact that except for basic Lands, other cards are restricted to only one per deck, you could actually mill away your opponent’s cards which is effectively of getting rid of it. Even with recursion in his or her deck, this would serve the purpose of wasting one recursion from his deck.

 

Cons:

As with all combo-based Sub Theme, your game plan is spoiled the moment you do not set up your combo or worse, your combo is disrupted. Due to the cards restriction in EDH, losing one piece of a combo could mean that combo is gone too. So depending on solely one combo to kill for mill deck is not advisable. Tutors are also good choice to include ensuring your combo pieces could be assemble. Nothing beats the frustration of having combo piece A and C only to be missing piece B. Worse still, losing the game without even seeing piece B. It is hard enough to try to draw into your combo in normal variant, EDH is not any easier either with the 99 cards to draw from. Discard or disruption is the bane of all combos; your combo is also vulnerable to your opponents’ discard or disruption. To counteract that, some form of recursions could be added into the deck to retrieve those combo pieces if needed, although any recursions are nice addition to any decks. And last but least, the new win con of Laboratory Maniac actually serves as the most ultimate but random foil against this whole Sub Theme. With this card present, your win con became your opponent’s win con.

 

 

Generals of Choice:

Ambassador Laquatus: – Mill Commander who you could use those extra mana to start milling your opponents before your big combo comes up. Include Artifacts (Grim Monolith; Mana Crypt; Mana Vault; Sol Ring; Thran Dynamo) and Lands (Ancient Tomb; City of Traitors; Scorched Ruins; Temple of the False God; Urza’s Mine; Urza’s Power Plant; Urza’s Tower) which could produce more than one mana to speeds up the process.

 

Oona, Queen of the Fae: – General which mill, and at the same time if you are lucky enough, provides you with an army to beatdown your opponent as well. Comes with high power (5/5) with Flying as well to beatdown opponent too if mill did not work out. Color Identity provides good control with disruption as well.

 

Geth, Lord of the Vault: – Another Commander with high stats (5/5) and evasion (Intimidate)to beatdown opponents if mill does not work out. Mill is dependent on opponent’s graveyard though, as number of cards mill is depending on the cc of the Artifact or Creature card you are stealing from your opponent’s graveyard. Mill cannot work when your opponents have no Artifacts or Creatures in the graveyard.

 

 

Today Sub Theme, Mill, is one of those Sub Themes which you could include into your deck if your deck Color Identity allows. It is generally very difficult to be running it on its own. The benefits of running it is that you could win usually with the combo one shot ignoring the Life points. Other than that, it could be use to disrupt your opponents too, Milling away their spells before they could even draw it. Setting up of the combo is the difficult part of the Sub Theme. As with most combo win, once the combo is not set up, you cannot win. Opponent’s disruption also spoils your game plan by taking away one piece of the combo. Tutors and recursion is good addition to your decks if you want your Sub Theme to work. With that we come to close for this article. Do come back next article for yet another Sub Themes.

 

This is yours truly, Edward “Reaper King” Leong, signing off.

:D~