# Classic Millstone Deck?



## el-remmen (Jul 28, 2008)

I want to build a classic Millstone deck - with its aim to win by decking your opponent.

Assuming one of the colors is to be blue (though I am willing to entertain having a single, dual or even tri-colored deck), how do you recommend I construct it.

For simplicity's sake assume no access to cards past Visions, because mostly that is true - thus, the title "classic" Millstone deck.

Thanks


----------



## Runestar (Jul 28, 2008)

The millstone is typically more of a path to victory, rather than a deck archetype. Usually, you control the board or lock down the opponent, then use millstone to deck your opponent (or at least, hasten your opponent decking himself), rather than use it as a proactive form of offense.

There are many types of control decks you can use, such as counterpost, prison and steel curtain. Is there any way of narrowing down your choice of deck?

One possibility might to have a blue/white deck which uses blue for counters (counterspell/force of will/arcane denial) and manipulation (recall/tutors/boomerang), white for removal (swords to plowshares, wrath of god, disenchant/island sanctuary/abeyance) and life gain (gerrad's wisdom), artifacts to help the opponent deck himself (howling mine/millstone/library of leng/feldon's cane), and glacial chasm for even more creature control.

The basic idea is just to sit back, counter whatever your opponent throws your way, while waiting for him to deck himself.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 28, 2008)

Ah, what a shame you're not using stuff from, say, Odyssey?. . . like Traumatize. It's still the old style cardface, if you get the earliest version.  Hilarity when paired with Haunting Echoes.

The only time I came up against a 'serious' millstone deck, IOW one that had any chance of winning, it was indeed in the form of a blue/white 'prison' deck. They lost, but had me worried for a bit. 

Anyway, it's certainly a slow way to play. I'm sure you've thought of that, but wow, it can make a game drag on for a while.


----------



## el-remmen (Jul 28, 2008)

Hey Aus, that Traumatize card looks awesome!

I am not against cards from Odyssey, I just don't own more than three or four by pure luck - I am actually looking for lots of Weatherlight and Odyssey cards on eBay. 

Blue/White, huh? Okay, I'll try it out - too bad I don't have any Blue/White dual lands (what are those again?)


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 28, 2008)

Tundra would be the one you're thinking of. I seem to remember that being around. . . the second most expensive dual, back when?  After Underground Sea, that is.

I can see Blue/Black working, as well, given that Black can control the board nearly as well as White. I'm having difficulty separating the older from the (_somewhat_) more recent cards, in my mind anyway, this made worse by the break I had from it all.  But if I think of any, I'll post 'em.


----------



## Crothian (Jul 28, 2008)

I used to play a blue/white millstone deck way back when.  Tundra is the dual land I think.    I also used Jester's Caps.  The ability to remove cards from their library of your choice is great.  There are a few cards that hose the millstone deck and the Jester's cap lets you remove them.  

I ran heavy denial and used moats for most monster defense.  Sword to Plowshares helps get the fliers and other annoy things like Tims.  Arcane Denails were nice since it gave them cards and got through their deck a little faster.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 28, 2008)

(Apologies in advance- I'm going from memory, so I may be talking about cards you won't be able to use.)

Decking an opponent has many paths.

Besides Millstone, there are several other artifacts that essentially do the same thing or a variant upon it (I don't have my deck on hand, or I'd name them off).  One mills a # of cards based on how much mana you pump into it, but if it mills a creature, it stops milling and puts the critter in play under your control.  As mentioned above, Jester's Caps are potential deck-wreckers.

One classic combo I saw in tournaments was Braingeyser combo-ed with ways to boost mana- Mana Flare, usually.  However, everyone has their faves- Urza Lands, Tolarian Academy, Elves + Priest of Titania + Gaia's Cradle (or whatever land it was), and so forth.  Use Blue cards & Howling Mines to draw your Braingeyser, then tap for a billion mana and _poof!_  No more deck!

Other cards that work well in this include some Black cards- Hypnotic Specter, you'll recall, makes your opponent discard from his hand- a real pain when your deck is getting milled besides.  Black also has a host of other discard cards.

A less common approach, but one I've used, was a Red combo of Shocker + Fire Whip.  Shocker is a 1/1 Red critter that makes you discard your hand and draw a new one if it damages you, and Fire Whip is a Red creature enchantment that lets you tap the creature to do 1 damage to any target.  This means you both mill and cause discards at the same time- up to 8 cards in normal circumstances, more if your opponent is drawing extra cards for some reason.


----------



## Runestar (Jul 29, 2008)

Though if you look at it, once you have the game locked down, you don't really need millstone to win you the game - you will win automatically with a single howling mine in game (or if you have more cards than your opponent). Millstone just speeds up the process.

Doesn't visions have this charm which lets you put the top 4 cards of your opponent's deck into his graveyard or something?

Tempest has grindstone, far superior to millstone. Try to get/use those if possible.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Jul 29, 2008)

Brain Freeze. Coupled with Ornithopters, some bounce spells (which can also slow down your enemies), you can easily play about 4 spells in a turn, then play the Brain Freeze and mill for around 15 cards.

With some combos, you can potentially achieve instant kills, if you want to go for that. But in any case, Brain Freeze is fun!

Another nice critter is Ambassador Laquatus - convert mana into milling.

Jester's Cap is also good - you effectively mill for 3 cards - but more importantly, you can wreck their entire strategy by selecting the right cards.

As a defense against gettig milled, there is Gaea's Blessing - you may want to have it if your have symmetric effects, and you also want to know about it to develop counter strategies - like Jester's Cap!

(Obligatory note: If you want to go post-7th, new frame, you get Glimpse the Unthinkable and Drowner of Secrets)

Cheers, LT.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 29, 2008)

Agh, never mind. Read a (3) as a (tap) symbol. Why? I don't know. Tired, is probably it.


----------



## el-remmen (Jul 29, 2008)

Brain Freeze looks good, but can someone explain to me how the "Storm" ability works?

Make copies? Whut?


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 29, 2008)

Pretty much like Fork, only not quite. And more so. If that helps. 

Better put (I hope), it's as if you've literally just played _x_ copies of that card (minus the 'storm' ability for the copies, I guess) where storm is increasing _x_ from an initial 1 by another 1 per spell of any kind previously cast in the same turn. Er. Well, that's how we've used it.

I think.


----------



## el-remmen (Jul 29, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:


> Pretty much like Fork, only not quite. And more so. If that helps.
> 
> Better put (I hope), it's as if you've literally just played _x_ copies of that card (minus the 'storm' ability for the copies, I guess) where storm is increasing _x_ from an initial 1 by another 1 per spell of any kind previously cast in the same turn. Er. Well, that's how we've used it.
> 
> I think.




Your explanation has confused me further.

Do you pay the casting cost for each "copy"?  How do you keep track of how many cast?

A lot of these later abilities seem really wacked to me. . .  Like Phasing was the last interesting ability - and even that can be problematic.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 29, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Your explanation has confused me further.
> 
> Do you pay the casting cost for each "copy"?  How do you keep track of how many cast?
> 
> A lot of these later abilities seem really wacked to me. . .  Like Phasing was the last interesting ability - and even that can be problematic.



lol, sorry. I had a bad feeling it might do that.

You don't pay the CC of the copies. The spell (with 'Storm') just replicates, as it were, a number of times equal to the number of other spells played so far in the current turn.

The official ruling (well, the one I found) is as follows:

502.30. Storm

502.30a Storm is a triggered ability that functions on the stack. “Storm” means “When you play this spell, put a copy of it onto the stack for each other spell that was played before it this turn. If the spell has any targets, you may choose new targets for any of the copies.”

502.30b If a spell has multiple instances of storm, each triggers separately.​

I suspect WotC has a better way with these explanations than I do.  Maybe someone who's a current player could step in here and lend a hand. . .?


----------



## el-remmen (Jul 29, 2008)

Yeah, I read that - it just seems. .  I don't know. . . _crazy!_


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 29, 2008)

Ah, well that's another problem altogether. . .  There are some truly insane storm spells, IIRC (which seems a little bit unlikely, admittedly.)

Could be pretty funny in multiplayer with lots of instants, I guess. Fun for one, kind of ha ha.


----------



## Crothian (Jul 29, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Yeah, I read that - it just seems. .  I don't know. . . _crazy!_




It does seem crazy but in practice it was a lot harder to cast a lot of spells and really take advantage of storm.  I'm sure there are some decks out there that just got nasty with it, but in my casual playing at most we could get off 3 or 4 spells before the storm spell.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 30, 2008)

A way to build a Super Secret Ninja Backdoor Millstone Deck...

Step 1) Build what looks like a creature deck- one with critters with big att strength stats.  Any color will do, but Green & Black tend to have the ones with the better creature attack str per mana spent- sometimes, seemingly way out of whack.  Green also has cards like Overrun.

Play as per usual.

Step 2) Include Altar of Dementia.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//carddisplay.php?product=9481

When you play it, launch a big attack.  You'll probably either do enough damage to seriously hurt your opponent, but even if you don't, you can dump all those critters on the altar and watch his library melt...like _Magic._


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 31, 2008)

I remembered what card it was that milled & took creatures: Helm of Obedience.  The only thing is that its activation cost has been changed from X to 1X- you need to have 1 mana to power it, and the rest goes to milling your foe.

http://magiccards.info/ai/en/163.html
http://magiccards.info/autocard.php?card=altar of dementia

I like it for 3 reasons.

1) If you have mana to burn, you can really take big chunks out of someone's deck, unless...

2) You get his creatures.  Not great if it has some cost you can't pay, or if its otherwise a weak creature- such as you'd find in a White Weenie Deck- but potentially killer if you get his Shivan Dragon.

3) If you also have the Altar of Dementia, you can use your opponent's critters to deck him!

In a related note, there is also the Helm of Possesion
http://magiccards.info/tp/en/281.html

Yet another way to get your opponent's creatures and use them against him while you're milling him.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 31, 2008)

Other artifacts?

Sol Ring, of course.  One land gets it out, which then gets your Millstone out.  Turn 2, start milling.

http://magiccards.info/al/en/269.html

Icy Manipulator.  Stall out some part of your opponent's deck.
http://magiccards.info/10e/en/326.html

Mishra's Helix as well.  For the most part, he can't hurt you if he can't cast anything.
http://magiccards.info/us/en/302.html

As for non-artifact stuff to consider...

Blue is indeed the classic color for such a deck.  With its counterspells and control cards, it lets you help lock your opponent while you mill him.  Besides Braingeysers & the various counterspells, consider Capsize.

http://magiccards.info/fnmp/en/34.html

Black is another classic color, since its various discard cards are almost as effective in helping you lock a game down as blue is, and in addition, it gives you the additional threat of creature damage and direct damage.  Some cards- Hypnotic Specter, Order of Yawgmoth, and Abyssal Specter- give you both discard AND creature damage at the same time.  In addition, it gives you some land destruction.

Red gives you creature removal and direct damage, but also gives you land destruction unequalled in the game- if your opponents have no land, they probably can't cast too much, leaving you to Mill at whatever pace you want.

White has all kinds of annoying life gainers, creature removal/resets (Wrath of God, Cataclysm), and action-clogging cards (like Moat).  Those all buy you time to Mill.

Green has virtually no support for this kind of build besides giving you creatures- giving you a mainstream damage threat that you can partner with Altar of Dementia and some of the other artifacts.

In addition, some special lands get you time or other threats.  There are creature lands (Mishra's Factory), lands which damage (Desert) or stall out attacks (Ice Floe)- all of which give you time and flexibility.


----------



## CountPopeula (Jul 31, 2008)

Your biggest threats are Gaea's Blessing, Splinter, and Psychatog.

Blessing needs to be fished out of the library, with a jester's cap or lobotomy or something.

Splinter can just be countered, you can never ever let it resolve.

Psychatog is blue/black, make sure you have some sort of method to deal with him. Because if you've put 30 cards in his graveyard and he casts upheaval, then casts psychatog.... game over.

Not to say there isn't other stuff to worry about, but those in particular are headaches.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Jul 31, 2008)

That's some nice cards there, DA. I've used Helm of Possession + Altar of Dementia in a casual black deck, myself. Fun!  And hey, an alternate win condition (usually, it just tried to beat the crap out of people and/or devour their souls, but well, you never know.)

Neat (regardless of what card serves the purpose of 'Helm of Possession'), because of course you're constantly removing threats at the same time as milling them. Yeah, obviously. But I agree, it's a nifty system to have going.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Jul 31, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Blue is indeed the classic color for such a deck.  With its counterspells and control cards, it lets you help lock your opponent while you mill him.  Besides Braingeysers & the various counterspells, consider Capsize.



If you're going for Capsize, throw in a Forbid for good measure, as well as some card draw. This way, you could go down the full MUC route with partial Draw-Go style and milling as main win condition.

Oh, you also may like the Rootwater Thief. Eating his library selectively is much more useful than pure winning! 

Cheers, LT.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 4, 2008)

Other cards of note:

Ashnod's Cylix:  A Millstone variant which does a second milling if the first 2 cards share a color.

http://magiccards.info/ai/en/158.html

Vexing Arcanix: yet another mill variant- he either gets the card or you mill it and do damage.

http://magiccards.info/8e/en/319.html

Tolarian Academy: a must have for any deck that is heavy in artifacts

http://magiccards.info/us/en/330.html

Mishra's Workshop: ditto, but for different reasons

http://magiccards.info/4e/en/181.html

Grinning Totem: first cousin to Jester's Cap.  I often use this one to get lands- especially special lands- from my opponents early on (you can't cast stuff if you don't have the right mana, after all).  If I do that (and/or use Fellwar Stones), I can cast one of their power cards the next time I use one.

http://magiccards.info/6e/en/288.html

The Urza Land Trio: lots of power to be gained to run your various mills.

http://magiccards.info/5e/en/449.html
http://magiccards.info/5e/en/448.html
http://magiccards.info/5e/en/447.html

For the record, I have a pure artifact deck in which I use the Helm of Obedience, Helm of Possession, Grinning Totem, and Jester's Cap to great effect, alongside Rocket Launchers, Living Walls, Force Fields, Shield of Ages, Sol Rings, Fellwar Stones, Teeka's Dragons and so forth...

Its nasty...especially when the Urza Trio and/or Academy and/or Workshop show up early...  It has 4 paths to victory- creature damage, direct damage, gutting the deck to uselessness and occasionally, using the foe's deck resources against him.


----------



## Lanefan (Aug 5, 2008)

One very important card nobody's mentioned yet:

Tormod's Crypt.

All the cards you mill go into the graveyard, and there's so many cards these days that use the graveyard as a resource that using Tormod's Crypt to empty your opponent's graveyard now and then is a Good Idea.

That said, milling is and always has been my favourite way to win games...but it's not easy.  The designers don't like long games (the whole tournament-on-a-schedule thing) and so milling and other long-game strategies often don't get the strongest options.

Lanefan


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 5, 2008)

Gahhhh!
I knew I forgot to post something last time!

Yeah- Tormod's Crypt is probably neccessary at least as a sideboard card.

If you're up against someone playing truly old-school, you'd also have to have some kind of way to deal with Library of Leng.  Typically, decks with the Library have ways of drawing lots of cards, so you might find they have little deck for you to target with your mill at any one time, and whatever is there is going to be of lesser importance to them.


----------



## Aus_Snow (Aug 7, 2008)

There was an artifact that removed cards from the graveyard continually, which might be a good alternative. Can't recall its name, unfortunately. The Crypt is neat (and cheap) but of course is a one-off (except when it isn't - I used to have a fondness for artifact or enchantment reuse, FWIW.)


----------



## Victim (Aug 8, 2008)

Phyrexian furnace could tap to remove a card from the graveyard, and I think you could sac it if you wanted to nuke the whole thing.


----------



## Asmo (Aug 8, 2008)

Grindstone is nice, and with Painter's Servant it´s just crazy - you could easily deck you opponent on round 2 or 3.

Asmo


----------



## Runestar (Aug 8, 2008)

Asmo said:


> Grindstone is nice, and with Painter's Servant it´s just crazy - you could easily deck you opponent on round 2 or 3.
> 
> Asmo



Are land affected? Else, you are looking at a 3rd turn win.

1) grindstone
2) servant
3) Grind...


----------



## Aus_Snow (Aug 8, 2008)

Runestar said:


> Are land affected? Else, you are looking at a 3rd turn win.
> 
> 1) grindstone
> 2) servant
> 3) Grind...



+Sol Ring for turn 2*. 

Eek. 


* That is: 1. Play land, tap it, play Sol Ring, tap it, play Painter's Servant; 2. Play land, tap it, play Grindstone, tap untapped land and Sol Ring, use Grindstone, win.


----------



## Asmo (Aug 8, 2008)

Runestar said:


> Are land affected? Else, you are looking at a 3rd turn win.
> 
> 1) grindstone
> 2) servant
> 3) Grind...




From starcitygames.com:

Q: In a recent game, my opponent had a Grindstone and Painter's Servant in play. He made all permanents blue with the Painter's Servant and then milled me with the Grindstone. Does that work?

A: Yes. Lands do not normally have a color, but they can be given one by an effect like Painter's Servant's.


----------



## Sollir Furryfoot (Aug 8, 2008)

A friend of mine has a classic millstone deck, with only millstones for grinding.  The initial suggestions will work well in any deck, but the support cards I've included at the end are probably because its meant as a multiplayer deck.

Jester's Cap has a brother, Jester's Scepter:

http://magiccards.info/cs/en/137.html

It's very neat for a Mill deck, cheaper and some re-use value.

Lantern of Insight is a must, as well:

http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/135.html

For 1 mana and combined with a millstone or two, you can be assured that your opponent will be drawing lands or at least sub-obtimal cards for 80% of the game.  Sometimes its wise to mill yourself if you see you're not getting the land you need or similar.  Just be sure not to combine these with Howling Mines or they'd counter the effect.

Elemental Augury is hard to cast with 3 colors but can be used in place of Lantern of Insight to screw over your opponent's draws:
http://magiccards.info/ia/en/364.html

He usually runs these cards as support:
http://magiccards.info/mi/en/221.html
http://magiccards.info/mm/en/290.html
http://magiccards.info/10e/en/115.html

Memory Lapse is also useful if you run multi-colored (since it's only 1U) and you can just mill off the card before its re-drawn.


----------



## Sollir Furryfoot (Aug 8, 2008)

Oh, if you go multicolored they've created some new dual lands that aren't quite as good but are much much cheaper to find.  Ravinica has one for every color:
http://magiccards.info/query/cards/427383.html
and every card set since then usually has some mana fixers.  If you look for Signets, they're 2 cost artifact where you can tap, pay 1 and get a 2 color-combination (Dimir Signet gives you BU) for instance.

If you want more of a Brain Freeze/Glimpse the Unthinkable deck with some creature aggro, I'll type up a list of a deck I'm building currently.


----------



## el-remmen (Aug 8, 2008)

Hey Sollir, you might have missed it from the beginning of the thread, but I am only interested in cards that are earlier than 8th edition (i.e. nothing that is not classic look magic cards).

But still, your suggestions might help others. . .

Thanks.


----------



## Sollir Furryfoot (Aug 9, 2008)

Oops, sorry El-remmen   Let me try this again.  

If you're in it for the long haul already, Ensnaring Bridge is a favorite.  It can pretty much stop all creatures on the ground so long as you keep your hand light.

http://magiccards.info/7e/en/294.html

In addition to or alternatively, Portcullis can be nasty.  Potentially you can get two of your own critters out if you plan for it (terror-ing your opponent or similar) but at the very least it can bog the game down fairly quickly.  Control Magic is effective with it since there's only limited creatures available.

http://magiccards.info/sh/en/133.html

Those two deal with combat, for all purpose lockdown, Sands of Time is hard to beat.  Basically, you and your opponent can only play instants or activated abilities of permanents and only during your upkeeps (unless one of you drop a land, then you can only play a single 1 casting cost spell).  For you it's pretty simple, just stick all that mana into your Millstones.  You'd probably want 2 millstone's out so you don't get stuck.

http://magiccards.info/vi/en/153.html

Hopefully one of those can help.  Some might be dead weight versus the wrong matchup (Sands of Time won't help much if your opponent is playing Red instant burn spells) but unless your opponent can deal with them easily you can mill them at your leisure.  Some way to destroy artifacts yourself might be handy, in order to force them to get rid of that Library of Leng/Feldon's Cane.


----------



## CountPopeula (Aug 9, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:


> +Sol Ring for turn 2*.
> 
> Eek.
> 
> ...




If your opening hand was island, sol ring, lotus petal/mox, lion's eye diamond/lotus, painter's servant and grindstone you could go off turn 1. of course, half of those are restricted or banned, depending on what format, and expensive either way. And there are easier ways to go off on turn 1.


----------



## Runestar (Aug 9, 2008)

And here I thought wotc would have learned from the suicide black/hatred 2nd turn kill fiasco...


----------



## Aus_Snow (Aug 9, 2008)

never mind.


----------

