So looking at the fact a couple of people are starting to attempt to throw together a functional Mill deck I figured I'd take a stab at it too. Of course let it never be said I take the easy path so let's run straight into my Simic Mill Deck (because Simic!)

x2 Animist's Awakening
x3 Dwynen's Elite
x4 Elvish Visionary
x1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
x3 Sigiled Starfish
x3 Alchemist's Vial
x2 Evolutionary Leap
x1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
x3 Elemental Bond
x3 Sphinx's Tutelage
x2 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
x4 Lys Alana Huntmaster
x2 Thopter Spy Network
x3 Zendikar's Roil
x13 Forest
x5 Island
x4 Simic Guildgate
x2 Hinterland Harbor

So I kinda don't want to talk about the strategy so I can see if other people can see what I'm seeing in this pile - I usually consider that a good sign I'm on to something. Still for completeness sake let's go!

Main engine is Sphinx's Tutelage + Elemental Bond. Ideally every time I play a creature I will be able to draw at least 1 card (preferably more) which will result in mill occurring.

Every creature I run is below the 3 power threshold to trigger bond so playing anything should cause it to trigger. Of particular note are Dwynen's Elite and Elvish Visionary who both cause two triggers a piece when they hit the field. Combine with Lys Alana Huntmaster and you're generating a bunch more tokens which trigger the bond a bunch more times which trigger Tutelage a bunch more times. Evolutionary Leap allows me to keep up the pressure by blowing up my chump-blockers and tokens to fish through my deck for more creatures to trigger my engines.

Zendikar's Roil found it's way in to act as another token generator to fuel Tutelage - which gave me an excuse to run Nissa and a little ramp. If everything get's set up then I mill the opponent each time I start my turn, each time I play a land and each time I play a creature.

Probably the weakest inclusion is Thopter Spy Network. Not that it's a bad card by any means - it does everything this deck is hoping to do (IE creating creatures that trigger Bond/Tutelage) while also allowing me to score more draw (and more triggers) by hitting the enemy. The problem is I have to run artifacts to get some use out of it - preferably ones that are hard to kill. Alchemist's Vial was the best option of the bunch (mostly because it draws when it enters play) though I would kill for an Elixir of Immortality in this card pool.

So what do you guys think? Think the engine is strong enough to fulfill it's purpose? Any issues you see coming up?

Turns out this was a load of wash because I misread Elemental Bond as 3 or lower. Well that sucks.

Hate to break it to you, but Elemental Bond is power 3 or greater kind of like that 4/4 packmaster guy we had.

I know. That discovery just killed me. I had so many ideas around Elemental Bond. I guess the lesson here is remember to read the cards or you'll look like an idiot like me.

I've got a cool idea in Simic... Posting it soon. Willbreaker shall be featured, I just need to see if there's a way to protect it.

Broken Will (Aggro/Control)

Blue: 15
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 x Frost Lynx
3 x Whirler Rogue
4 x Countermand
1 x Disciple of the Ring
2 x Willbreaker

Green: 18
4 x Fog
4 x Might of the Masses
4 x Timberland Guide
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Gather the Pack
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer

Multi-Color: 3
3 x Bounding Krasis

Land: 24
8 x Island
3 x Forest
2 x Hinterland Harbor
3 x Rogue's Passage
4 x Simic Guildgate
4 x Evolving Wilds


Description: I set out to make a deck to abuse Willbreaker, and this is what I came up with. In essence, your long term plan is to steal their creatures, and control the board. I added plenty of control elements to get you there - in terms of creatures that can tempo your opponent, and fog. I also added some hard counters to protect your creatures, and slow your opponent's late game down. Finally, there is draw in here to help you find your key cards. Without willbreaker in play this is a very good tempo deck. You can use fog to safely attack into your opponent. Your creatures area decent on their own (although by no means the best, they can still hang with most decks).

Once you have your willbreaker in play the deck changes completely. Most of the cards in the deck can target your opponent's creatures. This means that even cards that were originally intended to be boons for your cards, actually steal your opponents creatures instead. Jace, for example, can steal a creature each turn once willbreaker is in play. Rogue's passage becomes tap 5 lands to steal a creature at instant speed, Disciple steals a creature for 1 mana, etc... So bottom line, willbreaker has to be protected once it is in play. Hence the counterspells and Might of the masses (to hopefully save it from direct damage). Finally, evolutionary leap is a star in this deck. All of your creatures are either ETB, or a piece of the combo. Also, it's great to steal their creatures and sack them for a combo element. Good times to be had by all, lol.

I haven't come up with a complete list, but I at least have an idea for a simic deck. The idea is to use early G creatures to stabilize the board, then use whirler rogue to make a creature unblockable. You can draw cards via jhessian thief or do massive damage via a single unblockable creature equipped with Sigil of Valor. My combat trick selection would include the standard blue spells along with might of the masses, and some counterspells to prevent board wipes. The deck would also include thopter spy network as a way of generating long-term card advantage.

The unfortunate thing about this plan is that both early G creatures and early U creatures are pretty weak. It is hard to establish early game board presence and tempo when your early creature options pretty much suck.

Edit - after looking at the list again there just aren't enough cheap elves to make elf synergy work for U/G. Probably going to look to a different color.

Sea Green Mill
(Mill)

4x Fog

1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3x Sigiled Starfish
4x Telling Time
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Alchemist's Vial

3x Sphinx's Tutelage
3x Hydrolash
2x Calculated Dismissal

4x Inspiration
2x Countermand
2x Talent of the Telepath

Land
2x Hinterland Harbor
4x Simic Guildgate
10x Island
8x Forest

Manacurve
10-16-8-8

Summary: Turbo-Mill. Strategy with this one is to mill your opponent, who would’ve guessed? The best way to do this is abuse the early draw power in to find your Sphinx's Tutelage or even a second copy. Fog gives us a few ways to live until we mill the opponent. Early 2-drops like Sigiled Starfish and Elvish Visionary give us plenty of options to cantrip or dig for the mill cards we need. Once your Sphinx's Tutelage sticks you just need to control the amount of damage you take until the enemy decks him/her-self from all of your draw triggering Sphinx's Tutelage.

Obviously the down-side to this deck is how dependent it is on Sphinx's Tutelage. But with so many spells it should be easy to find. Also Jace, Vryn's Prodigy should flip early and often. His +1 helps keep you alive while you work towards his ultimate. His flashback can also help re-buy Inspiration to find more draw spells and mill your opponent as a 2-for-1. Another downside is how little removal there is. The best bet deal with a large threat is to fog it or tap it down with Disciple of the Ring each turn but it isn't much.

I would only recommend this deck for 'fun.' It might work against the AI when grinding for gold but I would not take it online where you can potentially run into aggro decks that will kill you before you can stabilize and find your win-conditions. There is some mitigate in this deck but it's really only effective against slower midrange decks. A swarm deck would easily get past all of the marginal damage prevention.

edit: -1 Disciple of the Ring -1 Wildsize

Should be very good against slower decks. To give you a small chance against aggro, I'd throw in some more stuff to slow them down.

I think you can cut Talent of the Telepath, it will rarely hit something and especially against aggro it's useless. Disciple of the Ring is another card I'd avoid in this deck as you should be on your back foot and can't afford to tap out for what is basically just a blocker till turn 6. I don't think this deck can stall for very long, so spending a turn for this lategame utility is dangerous imo. You can still tap fatties with Vials and the later turns are what you have your Fog for anyway.

In order to save the Fog for big swings later on, you'll need something else to slow them down early. Maybe Disperse can buy you an extra turn and it's very good against auras. You could also consider Runed Servitor as an additional blocker. I think both of these are better than Wild Size and Hydrolash. Mainly because they're cheaper and you're on a short clock. Your turn 3 play should be Tutelage if you have it and turn 4 you're better off with 2 2-drops rather than a 3-drop.

Maybe replace Inspiration with Artificer's Epiphany to save mana and squeeze more spells in. You can run 7 artifacts and even without one it's a decent card to trigger Tutelage and dig into the deck. If you wanna play with your pants down you need to be as fast as possible.

Guildgates slow you down too much and aren't really needed. The double blue at 4 should be no problem with all that draw/scry.

Is there a special reason why the deck has 62 cards?

Hi Gegliosch,

Thank you for the thorough response.

I agree that Disciple of the Ring isn’t too great here. My thought process at the time was to use her as a “tap your dude down” in the late game until we can mill them out. Then again, I wrote this list at like 2-3 am, so that’s a thing. As for Talent of the Telepath, I get that it isn’t a great card, but it is good at milling your opponent for a good number of cards. If I can get a spell (or two) out of the deal then that’s great. I understand your point, though. It’s really something that is dependent on the meta.

In regards to Disperse I just don’t like this card in the format. I think there are enough good two-drops that I don’t want to play a tempo card when I can’t take advantage of the effect. It’s a fog-for-one guy that brings me down a card most of the time. I see your point about auras but I never thought auras were good and it’s not a two-for-one if you bounce their guy it’s a one for one at best. I don’t know I think it’s better to punish auras with black but that’s my opinion. Runed Servitor is a great card but I don’t know if I would want my opponent drawing more fuel when it dies. I’m basically stalling so giving them another go at gas seems bad.

Wild size is basically just a cantrip most of the time. But it can be used defensively to kill something and is highly unexpected from my side. Hydrolash isn’t an excited option to use but it fills out the 3-slot and helps trigger tutelage. So I can’t say I am sold on adding more to the two slot (which is already packed). I think it’s super important to curve out and Hydrolash can fog on turn 3.

Finally Inspiration seems like the best card draw in the game. It’s not perfect but it’s instant speed, it fills your library for spell mastery, and most importantly it doesn’t cost life! I would definitely consider Epiphany if I added Runed Servitor though. It could possibly be much better while replacing the 3-slot should someone remove Wild Size and Hydrolash. The guildgates are there as a turn-1 play. Sounds dumb I know but I like having access to enough colors and guildgates help with consistency even with the occasional draw back. If you chose to remove them, though, I wouldn’t fault you. Really this is just something I do. I will probably stop doing it once I am actually playing the game and realize it’s a bad idea.

Thank you for the constructive criticism. It’s great to hear other’s ideas on the forum and help tune a deck. I hope more people are active in this sub-forum post launch. Have a great weekend.

p.s.

@ Tako No particular reason. I just miscounted because I was using an odd curve at the 2-slot and then did the manabase to support that. I will update the list in a minute. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Yes, Disperse is a tempo card and that's exactly what you need imo. You can't control your opponent very well and you can't challenge their board. This means you're in a race situation from the beginning and tempo cards should help tremendously. That's the reason for all my suggestions actually. Empty your hand fast, make use of your card draw with multiple cheap spells and delay your opponent, not control, just delay. Disperse is much better than a Fog early on, because it not only prevents the damage once, it usually negates their last turn, sometimes even more.

I also think you worry too much about card advantage. Once they empty their hand, no matter the size, you can most likely only stay alive with Fog for a couple more turns. At this point it really doesn't matter if they can add even more threats to the board or not - you either have the Fog or you're dead. It doesn't change the clock.

Hydrolash: Do you really wanna spend 3 mana to negate 2 damage? Imo this is wasting time, 2 damage are rarely gonna change the clock and you likely spend a whole turn on that. Even Alchemist's Vial will prevent much more damage by tapping an attacker and at least you can cast it before more important turn 3 plays like Tutelage. If it must be a 3-drop I prefer the Wildsize because it actually affects the board.

Imagine how big and fun sphinx's tutelage with nissa's revelation could be if you hit gaeas or a stag.

I wouldn't play nissa's revelation in anything other than a deck that is devoted to big, fat creatures, ramp, and enough removal to survive the early game. If you start adding mill it is just taking you in a different direction. Drawing 8 and gaining 5 life should win you the game anyway, adding sphinx's tutelage is just win more.

Blue/Green Bounce
(Tempo)

2 drop (13)
2x Disperse
1x Displacement Wave
4x Elvish Visionary
2x Harbinger of the Tides
4x Timberpack Wolf

3 drop (9)
3x Bounding Krasis
3x Frost Lynx
1x Wildsize
2x Yeva's Forcemage

4 drop (7)
4x Separatist Voidmage
3x Whirler Rogue

5 drop (4)
2x Conclave Naturalists
2x Outland Colossus

6 drop (1)
1x Woodland Bellower

7 drop (1)
1x Gaea's Revenge

Lands (25)
9x Forest
2x Hinterland Harbor
10x Island
4x Simic Guildgate

Manabase
16 u = 86% turn 4
15 g = 90% turn 5

Manacurve
13-9-7-4-1-1

Tappedout.net
http://playtest.tappedout.net/24-07-15-KKm-ug-tempo/

Notes:
Maybe -4 Elvish Visionary +4 Faerie Miscreant

To tell the truth, I don't see a lot of synergy at . I will probably skip this color combination until I am forced to play with it.

4 x Simic Guildgate
2 x Hinterland Harbor
1 x Rogue's Passage
9 x Island
8 x Forest

2 x Harbinger of the Tides
3 x Undercity Troll
4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Disperse

3 x Jhessian Thief
4 x Frost Lynx
3 x Bounding Krasis
3 x Anchor to the Aether

3 x Whirler Rogue
4 x Separatist Voidmage

2 x Outland Colossus

1 x Woodland Bellower

Hakeem, I could be wrong, but I wonder whether your deck is trying to do two things when it should try to do one. That is, you're using evasive fliers to get damage in, but then you also want your ground guys to get through, and they need bounce/tapping/pumps to accomplish that. This would be a fairly dramatic revision of your deck into more of a mid-range-ish thing, but what would you think of changing it to focus solely on getting damage through on the ground, with a bit of a side theme of card draw? From your list:

-4 Faerie Miscreant
-4 Welkin Tern (get rid of the fliers, reduce vulnerability to twin bolt and to a lesser extent goblin arsonist chumping a ground dude then killing a flier)
-4 Timberpack Wolf (just don't think it's that good)
-1 Sigil of Valor (ditto)
-3 Forest
-4 Island

+1 Might of the Masses (instead of the Sigil of Valor)
+4 Elvish Visionary (rather than the Miscreants)
+4 Gatecreeper Vine (this is why we're cutting a total of 4 lands, and it adds a blocker, makes might of masses bigger and thins the deck)
+4 Wildsize (kind of the build around card of the revised deck - can often be used to kill a blocker and draw a card or push through Jhessian Thief or Undercity Troll for the damage to player triggers, but when combined with Might of Masses can also just kill outright over a chump blocker.)
+4 Frost Lynx (rather than the wolves)
+3 Evolving Wilds (no one drop creatures, so tapped lands aren't as scary, and it adds color fixing and thins the deck)

This would be a slower deck, but more capable of handling longer games due to the 12 additional spells that draw or tutor another card, and would have a lot more ability to disrupt the opponent's board with Lynx and Wildsize.

I have not spent money, so I've been working with the starter cards and the packs I've earned, but a janky, slower version of the above (would love to find a Bounding Krasis or two) has been the most effective deck I've tried so far. I'm up to Rank 18 (from Rank 7) using it today.

You want to play a 20-land deck with three Evolving Wilds and add eight additional three-drops? I don't think that's gonna fly. Let me know if you try it, though.

Ok, here's the deck I've been using. It's objectively terrible of course. A lot of the cards desperately need to be replaced with something better, but I'm working with the cards I've found so far.

2x Might of the Masses
3x Welkin Tern
3x Undercity Troll
4x Gatecreeper Vine
1x Elvish Visionary
3x Telling Time
2x Titanic Growth
4x Frost Lynx
2x Valeron Wardens
3x Reclamation Sage
4x Wildsize
1x Whirler Rogue
3x Darkslick Drake
1x Willbreaker
1x Conclave Naturalist
1x Rhox Maulers
3x Kapsho Kitefins
1x Woodland Bellower
7 Island
7 Forest
4 Simic Guildgate (so the Gatecreeper Vines can tutor them if necessary).

That's an 18 land deck with 13 three-drops, 4 four-drops, 3 five-drops and 4 six-drops. And it's worked quite well over a couple dozen multiplayer games, including against some players who have clearly bought most or all of the cards. I keep pretty much any hand with two or more lands, and mulligan to 6 if I don't, unless I have one green source and a Gatecreeper Vine on the draw, when I might gamble and keep a one land hand. The Gatecreepers always give a land and Telling Time does 2/3 of the time, and both are two drops. So once you've got the first two lands, you're functionally a 24 land deck (with each Gatecreeper counting for one and the three Telling time counting for a total of two). I lost one game out of 20+ because I couldn't get lands in time. I originally had 20 lands, but cut two after I lost one from flooding out (!). It's done better at 18.

I'd love to try the deck I listed above, but I don't have the missing cards.