When most players sit down to play a game of Magic, whether it be casually or in a tournament, they usually sit down with the idea of dealing twenty damage to their opponent’s face. A lot of players simply ignore or don't know that Magic actually has three different win conditions:

• A player loses when they are reduced to zero life.

• A player loses when they receive ten poison counters.

• A player loses when they can no longer draw a card.

Of these three win conditions, most players have died thousands of times by damage to the face, and a few older ones remember the fun of trying to dodge the last poison counter back in the Ice Age/Mirage Block eras. However, the third win condition most players only encounter when a long stalemate has gone on and their opponent can no longer draw cards since their deck has dwindled down to nothing. Today, we're going to take a look at this third way of winning, and a few decks that use it.

The first thing to remember about creating a Mill deck is that you’re usually setting yourself up for a very long game. Because the goal of your deck is to remove whatever cards in your opponent's library that they don't naturally draw themselves, it’s going to take a little longer than your average attempt to hit your opponent with twenty points of damage. I've played duels that have lasted as long as an hour or better, and multiplayer games where playing a milling deck has forced the game into two or three hours much to the unhappiness of the other people around me. So if someone says that they want to play a quick game, I would seriously consider picking up another deck.

The second thing to remember about the anatomy of a Mill deck is that the it is most often a Control deck at heart. (There are a few odd Combo-Mill decks out there.) So just like your average Control deck, you'll need a few things:

• Defense. Since your goal is survive until your opponent(s) run out of cards, having ways of preventing them from killing you is a must. Plan on equipping your deck with creatures with defender or high toughness and consider using enchantments like Teferi's Moat, Ghostly Prison or Maze of Ith to stall out your opponent’s attacks.
• Board clearers. Often times a Mill deck will have little to no creatures of its own, so it can often turn to Wrath of God, Damnation, or their cousins to clear the board of creatures with very little damage to the deck's game plan. These board clearers will often buy you precious turns of making your opponent’s deck magically disappear.
• Counterspells and utility. Most Mill decks are often base-Blue and will want to include some form of counter power to prevent their kill conditions from being destroyed or to keep something off the board that their defense and board clearers can't handle. Utility (such as Disenchant or Swords to Plowshares) are often just as important as defensive measures in case something gets through your counterspells, or to give you options in case you know that you need to save your counters for something even more threatening to your game plan.
• Kill condition. Just like most Control decks, the Mill deck needs a kill condition. Sometimes it’s an artifact or two that mill your opponents, sometimes it’s a creature, and sometimes even high-impact spells. Just remember that you need to protect them so that you can win.

The mindset of Mill decks is often the same mindset found in tournament-level Control decks. Just like tournament Control decks, Mill decks are defensive in nature and for the most part make for passive, boring game play. Many of my friends find these decks tough to play simply because they enjoy actually being able to do something, so if you’re a person who likes explosive turns or beating your opponent with massive creatures, make sure that you only approach playing this style if you’re up for a real challenge. The other part of the mindset is to consider the attitude of your opponent(s); if your opponent or play group doesn't like games that grind to a halt, you should either be prepared for silent complaints, sudden concessions, or outright hostility if your Mill deck makes too many appearances.

Now that we've talked about the basics, let's take a look at a few examples:

Example 1: Artifact Milling

This deck is perhaps one of the best examples of the principals stated above. It combines counterspells like Absorb and Last Word to protect you from anything devastating and uses Evacuation as an emergency board clearer. It also takes advantage of the life gain from Ivory Tower and the creature-tapping abilities of Staff of Domination as defense against creature attacks. The deck also includes Pristine Angel as one of the best blockers available; this protection from everything Angel can serve as an alternative win condition should milling not prove adequate. Finally, it uses some traditional milling artifacts like Millstone, Grindstone, and Jester's Cap to accomplish the milling mission.

Some of the artifacts:

Millstone: The original mill card. Two cards for two mana; efficient but not very exciting.

Grindstone: Released in Tempest, this card brought a whole new dimension to milling by allowing you to potentially get more than two cards. Sometimes it acts as a slow Millstone, but against mono-color decks, it can often nab eight to 12 cards before grinding to a halt.

Whetstone: This card is designed to be symmetrical, milling two cards from everyone at the same time, so it requires some modifications for your own deck to withstand that symmetry. The major modification is usually the inclusion of Gaea's Blessing to put your library back where it belongs.

Offset the symmetry of Whetsone with Gaea's Blessing
or one of its relatives...

Mesmeric Orb: This artifact doesn't require you to spend any mana beyond the casting cost. Instead, it mills as people untap. Just like Whetstone, decks packing this bad boy usually require the power of Gaea's Blessing or something similar.

Jester's Cap: This powerful artifact does more than just place cards from your opponent’s library into their graveyard; it allows you to see the contents of their entire deck, remove a combo piece, or take out any major threat to you completely. And laugh while doing so. Evilly.

Example 2: Artifact Milling with Creature Board Control

This example comes from one of my previous articles. As you can see, it continues to use the classic milling artifacts like Millstone, Grindstone, and Jester's Cap for a milling win. Counterspells and utility still come into play as well. The major shift of the deck is the use of Mageta the Lion as the major board clearer. He represents a major problem for other decks, since he can continuously remove creatures from the board. Other defensive elements include bouncing creatures with Waterfront Bouncer or simply stealing the best one with Keiga, the Tide Star. It also can win with either beatdown from Keiga or the single Meloku included in the deck.

Example 3: Milling with Spells

With the release of Ravnica and the House Dimir, some incredibly powerful milling spells were released. Outside of the prior release of Traumatize, milling had always been confined to artifacts and a few creatures. Here is one of the decks designed to take advantage of these powerful spells:

This deck uses Damnation as its primary board clearer. However, it also utilizes Terminate as spot destruction, since it can be copied by the abilities of Izzet Guildmage, Uyo, and the Quanar. Those same copy abilities turn milling spells Glimpse the Unthinkable, Traumatize, and Brainfreeze into back-breaking plays. The lone counterspell (Undermine) is there simply to stop anything that will seriously hamper your ability to win, such as indestructible creatures or an opponent’s Gaea's Blessing. Circu creates an interesting twist on the mill theme by forcing opponents to not be able to play key spells that he removes from the game, crippling them even further.

Some of the key milling spells include:

Glimpse the Unthinkable: Ten cards for two mana; the most efficient milling card in the game.

Brain Freeze: The storm mill. Can often catch opponents off guard and remove massive amounts of cards. This card was the desired kill spell in the Mind's Desire decks that once dominated Standard and Extended.

Dampen Thought: The Arcane milling spell from the Kamigawa block. In the proper deck, it can nab several sets of four cards by being spliced onto other Arcane spells.

Traumatize: Half of their library gone... ‘nuff said.

Vision Charm: This versatile spell can nab four cards, or do other things, so it’s never a dead card.

Extract: One-for-one card removal... a great way to deal with Gaea's Blessings still in your opponent’s library.

Besides spells and artifacts, Wizards have given us several creatures over the years that love to attack the library and make it go away. It’s very fitting that many of them are Wizards themselves as seen in the following example:

Example 4: Wizards and Your Disappearing Library

This wizard deck does not just put cards into the graveyard, but uses the special abilities of Raven Guild Master, Scalpelexis, and Supreme Inquisitor to remove them from the game. The Patron Wizard gives counterspell possibilities, while Meloku and Scalpelexis provide large bodies for defense. Meloku can also step in should milling not be enough to get the job done.

Creatures that love to eat libraries include:

• Raven Guild Master: If he hits an opponent, ten cards leave the game... chances are to never return.
• Supreme Inquisitor: Kind of useless by himself, but give him four Wizard friends and you get to remove five cards from your opponent’s library each time you can untap your creatures.
• Circu, Dimir Lobotomist: Circu takes your Blue and Black spells and uses them to remove those spells to remove the top card of your opponents library from the game. Then they can't play those cards as long as Circu stays around. He’s counter magic and mill in one package.
• Szadek, Lord of Secrets : This guild master from Ravnica loves to mill when he hits players... and he doubles in size every time. It’s not unusual to see him taking twenty to forty card chunks out of people's libraries at a time.
• Cloudhoof Kirin: Old Hoofy loves to interact with your Arcane spells and Spirits to fill graveyards.

Speaking of Old Hoofy, the next deck (which comes directly from the deck archives here at Magic Deck Vortex) shows off his interactions quite well:

Example 5: Exhibit Z

This deck uses the interactions between Cloudhoof Kirin and other Spirit and Arcane spells to quickly eliminate an opponent’s library. It has plenty of spot removal in Rend Flesh and Consuming Vortex, plus mass removal in Hideous Laughter. As a bonus, Dampen Thought can be spliced on to most of these spells to remove even more cards from their library.

While Wizards and Spirits have inspired Mill decks for eons, even the mighty kings of aggression – Slivers – can produce a Mill deck if you enjoy this style of playing:

Example 6: Sliver-mill

This deck uses Screeching Sliver to give all Slivers, “Tap this: Mill a card.” It then abuses Intruder Alarm by creating Hippo tokens with the Phelddagrif or Saprolings with the Evangel to totally mill any number of libraries down to nothing on one explosive turn. It can also win with traditional Sliver beatdown, or by abusing Gemhide Sliver and the Phelddagrif to make the Questing Hippo bigger than Hungry, Hungry Hippos and send it smashing through your opponents defenses for the win.

As we've seen, Mill can be put together in quite a few ways, with Wizards giving us many options with which to gobble up libraries and give our opponents fits. Finally I leave you with this deck that my friends hate to see hit the table in our multiplayer games:

This last deck enjoys drawing up massive cards with Walking Archives, Howling Mines and Kami of the Crescent Moon; beating face with Kiyomaro; and stalling out your opponents with the Spheres and Grand Arbiter.

However, the core of the deck is the heart of what I've discussed throughout this entire article. First, it stalls with the aforementioned Sphere/Arbiter combo. Then it stops as many threats as possible with Counterpells and destroys the creatures on the board with Wrath of God. Then as your opponent draws massive amounts of cards and can't play them, Dreamborn Muse steals away their library equal to the amount of cards in their over-flooded hand. If they actually tap to play anything, then Mesmeric Orb steps in to leech away even more of their library. Talk about being stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

I hope that you've enjoyed reading about milling, and stop in and check out the MDV deck database for more Mill decks that are interesting to say the least.

Omegaprime9774

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