Dimir Mill

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Way back when we started playing Magic: the Gathering, we just played a bunch of derpy cards in builds with no real strategy at our kitchen table - and had fun.  When we finally left the comfort of our domicile and went to our first Friday Night Magic event (in 10th Edition / Lorwyn), we saw a great many new cool cards and prompty had our butt handed to us in short order.  One build of particular note which was particularily annoying was a mill strategy using Millstone (Tenth Edition rare) coupled with several other cards designed to drain your library into your graveyard and lose you the game.  As a result of this in our formative MTG years, we were traumatized by any mill deck.  We can now proudly say we're over this and now have a standard-casual mill deck of our own.
 

Well that said, our interest peaked after Gatecrash was released.  When we was the abilities on Duskmantle Guildmage, specifically the ability to ping your opponent for one life with each card hitting the 'yard.  This Guildmage, along with the M13 Jace's zero ability to mill ten cards at a time had us salivating.  Unfortunately, when we attempted to put it into practice, we ran into trouble having that go off.  We finally decided to drop that altogether but were still quite decided to have a list shake out of all the new options available.  Here's what we have so far . . .

4x Thought Scour
4x Dream Twist
4x Jace's Phantasm
3x Think Twice
2x Essence Scatter
4x Mind Sculpt
3x Wight of Precinct Six
3x Augur of Bolas
2x Mind Grind
3x Talrand, Sky Summoner
2x Jace, Memory Adept
2x Consuming Aberration

15x Island
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Swamp
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One Drops
Thought Scour - Mills two, draws a card
Dream Twist - Mills three, with flashback available
Jace's Phantasm - rapidly becomes a 5/5 flyer with their 'yard filling up.

Two Drop
Mind Sculpt - Mills seven, now we're cooking
Think Twice - Essential card draw with flashback
Essence Scatter - Cheap creature counterspell (for our local meta, easily switched out for other counter magic).
Wight of Precinct Six - Only three of these, they can grow into monsters but you don't want to drop 'em too early.
Augur of Bolas - Great early blocker that will likely get you another mill card with it's eotb effect.
Four Drop
Tallarand, Sky Summoner - Sad to see no-one likes / plays this card.  He's not that bad, and with a deck with a lot of instants / sorceries, we think we can generate a load of 2/2 drake tokens.

Five Drop
Jace, Memory Adept - We think we want to use the '0' ability every time to mill ten cards each turn.
Consuming Aberration - This Dimir monster not only is a fatty with all the cards in your opponent's graveyard, but will also mill too.

X-Cost
Mind Grind - late game mana sink and tip-top milling machine.  Love that it mills up to and including a land card, which in our opinion may pay dividends.

We would have liked to have Snapcaster Mage in the list but we don't own any - sad Panda is sad.  Perhaps we'll break down and collect a pair from MTG Mint Card before they rotate out of standard.
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Deck Types

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As there are 451 magic cards in the Lorwyn block, one would be able to play a multitude of different types of decks constructed around mana colour, card combinations, creature race, or class. Most Magic players enjoy constructing a deck just as much as playing the deck itself.

Whatever you may have strategically incorporated into your magic deck, it may be classified as one of three basic deck types and futhermore into several different subtypes. The three basic types are as follows;

Control Deck - This type of deck contains cards intended to control or interupt your opponents play by a variety of methods such as creature removal or counterspells. The strategy with this sort of deck is restrict your opponent from ever gaining an upper hand and then to produce one or more cards or card combinations to win the game.

Aggro Deck - The name for this deck type is a diminutive for 'aggresive'. As the name suggests, the cards within this deck has been included to deliver the most amount of damage possible. An Aggro deck would typically contain a large amount of creatures which can overwhelm blockers early in the game and begin dealing damage directly to the opponent before they would be able to mount a resistance.

Combo Deck - As you may have guessed, this type of deck uses a combination of cards chosen to deal a large amount of damage to an opponents, often in just a limited number of turns. To be able to bring out the strategic combination of cards quicker, the player often includes cards which allow them to search their library for them. The Lorwyn block provides eight such cards called 'Harbingers'.

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As a singular blog post is insufficient to even attempt to provide exiguous examples of Lorwyn block constructed deck types, I will resign myself to suggesting cards which may lend itself well to these decks.

Control Example: Some colours naturally lend themselves naturally to certain deck types. Blue has traditionally seen itself being considered for inclusion in control-type decks. There are several white and blue Merfolk cards which may be candidates for inclusion in a control deck. One strategy is to 'mill' (from the older Magic card 'Millstone') until all their cards are removed thus winning the game. Some cards to consider here are Drowner of Secrets, Ink Dissolver, Grimoire Thief, and / or Jace Beleren.

















Aggro Example: If you are looking to overwhelm an opponent, there are many cards available which crank out a multitude of tokens which will take care of business. Cards such as Lys Alana Huntmaster, or Elvish Promenade may be considered for this task.









Alternatively, a player may decide to deliver massive hits and include cards with 'trample' which are able to deal damage to their opponent even when blocked. Some examples may include Nova Chaser or Boldwyr Heavyweights.









Combo Example: Some players build a deck around one or two very effective card combinations. Given the size of the Lorwyn Block one can imagine the great number of combinations available. These range from from fairly simple and effective combinations such as coupling Kinsbaile Borderguard and Graceful Reprieve to more complex ones requiring two or more. Another example of a simple and effective combo is Militia's Pride and Dolmen Gate.

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Remember, the deck you decide to build is bounded only by your imagination.