Mill

‘Mill’ is a Magic deck archetype that seeks to defeat opponents by eliminating the cards in their libraries, rather than by reducing life totals to 0. It does this by ‘milling’ cards (putting the top cards of a library into its owner’s graveyard). Then, when opponents attempt to draw a card from an empty library, that player loses the game. The archetype derives its name from the first card to feature this ability, Millstone. The keyword "Mill" was fully codified with the release of Core Set 2021 on cards such as Teferi's Tutelage and Thieves' Guild Enforcer.

Mill is almost exclusively found in blue and black.

## **Popular Cards & Commanders**

**Popular mill cards include:**

* Traumatize
* Fleet Swallower
* Persistent Petitioners
* Teferi’s Tutelage
* Consuming Aberration
* Mind Grind

**Common mill commanders include:**

* Phenax, God of Deception
* Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
* Bruvac, the Grandiloquent

## **Strategy**

Because a mill player must eliminate 300 cards from enemy libraries, rather than eliminating 120 life points from enemy life totals, mill decks can operate more slowly than other archetypes. Mill decks often feature elements of control decks, keeping themselves well-defended as they eliminate cards from enemy libraries.

### **Reanimation**

Because mill decks fill the graveyards so easily, some players may elect to add reanimator effects to the mill strategies. Cards such as Rise of the Dark Realms or Memory Plunder can allow a mill player to make use of their opponents’ graveyards to have a powerful impact on the battlefield.
Along these lines, mill players may also employ cards such as Consuming Aberration, which grows much larger as enemy graveyards fill up, which allows the mill player to change their tactics and deal lethal damage if the need arises.
### **Exile**

Conversely, mill players may choose to exile enemy graveyards as quickly as possible, to ensure that their opponents are unable to make use of any resources that have been milled. Cards like Ashiok, Dream Render or Oona, Queen of the Fae may be used to exile cards from enemy libraries, rather than filling their graveyards.
### **Propensity for Combo**

Some cards in a mill deck may lead to combos that can immediately remove a player’s entire library in a single turn. Examples include:
* Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Traumatize, which will mill all cards (or all but one card) from an opponent’s library.
* Helm of Obedience + Leyline of the Void. Helm will mill a player until its condition is met, but Leyline will put those cards into exile, rather than the graveyard. This combination will therefore put all cards from its target’s library into exile.
* Mindcrank + Duskmantle Guildmage. Whenever an opponent loses life, Mindcrank will mill them that many cards. Whenever they mill cards, the Guildmage will make them lose life. This combination can infinitely reduce an opponent’s life total or their library, whichever comes first.

## **Common Deck Categories**

* Mill Cards
* Graveyard Payoffs
* Graveyard Hate
* Pillowfort Effects / Token Makers
* Reanimation Effects / Recursion
* Card Draw
* Ramp
* Removal
* Board Wipe Cards

**10 cards** will probably give you **2 cards in a given game** from that category, and a good chance to **start with 1** in your opening hand. Critical categories for your deck may require a similar or larger number than this, depending on expected levels of Counterspells or Removal.
**5 cards** will probably give you **1 card per game** of that category. Cards you don't want to overload on but still want access to (*board wipes in a tokens deck for instance*) may want a similar figure to this... Going smaller than this number makes receiving a card of this category very unlikely without Tutors or some other Toolbox approach.

## **Strengths and Weaknesses**

### **Strengths**

* Mill decks do not often care about combat damage or about lifegain. Enemy players with cards that gain lots of life or that can prevent combat damage will find themselves with nearly-useless cards when against a mill deck.

* Mill decks have the ability to perform combos that eliminate a player’s entire library in a single turn, which can defeat unwary opponents from seemingly out of nowhere.

### **Weaknesses**

* In one-on-one games of Magic, a mill player only has to worry about eliminating 60 cards from their singular opponent’s library. In games of Commander, with 100-card decks and multiple opponents, a mill player must eliminate upwards of 300 cards from enemy libraries before their strategy will allow them to win the game. The inherent rules of the EDH format make mill a much harder struggle than other formats.

* Many other deck archetypes make use of their own graveyard and will be happy to have their cards milled. Reanimator decks, for example, will see a mill player as an asset, rather than a threat, because the mill player will help them fill their graveyard. Mill decks must be extremely careful against these players, lest they accidentally assist their opponents’ strategies.

* Mill decks are also, in many cases, all alone. While most other players will seek to win the game by reducing enemy life totals to 0, mill players are likely to be the only player at the table who attempts to deck out their opposition. While combat-based decks can build off of the life loss produced by other players (for example, Player A dealing 15 damage to Player B, and Player C dealing the remaining 25 damage to Player B), mill players are not usually able to work in tandem with any other player, since they are approaching victory on completely different axes.

* There are popular cards in Commander that can reset player’s graveyards by shuffling them back into their libraries. Milling a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, for example, will reset all the work a mill player has done, and set them back to square one, possibly even preventing them from ever being able to mill out that library at all.

## *Mill in non-standard colors*

EDH is known for unusual deckbrewing, for instance taking a mechanic and using magic's long history to demonstrate ways of doing it in a highly unusual color combination. While Blue and Black are the only colors that can directly Mill your opponents, there are some unusual means to indirectly reproduce the end result without using Blue or Black.

*Wheel Cards:*Collective Defiance, Khorvath's Fury, Dragon Mage, Incendiary Command, Reforge the Soul, Ruin Grinder, Runehorn Hellkite, Sensation Gorger, Wheel of Fate, Wheel of Fortune, Magus of the Wheel, Wheel of Misfortune, Memory Jar, Burning Inquiry, Geier Reach Sanitarium
 **Green** provides Self-Mill only, however it's focus on power and access to creature tutors, recursion, mana production and cost reduction may interact with some artifacts to still allow a surprise Mill victory (*see below*).
**Colorless** offers some access to Mill effects, and also group draw effects which can help supplement Mill effects (*They continue to empty libraries while also potentially triggering the 'draw from an empty library' loss of game immediately, rather than waiting until their turn*)
*Mill Cards:*24+ Cards
*Mass Draw Cards:*Anvil of Bogardan, Font of Mythos, Howling Golem, Howling Mine, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, Temple Bell, Otherworld Atlas
 **White** has a small number of group draw spells, but the number of effects or the number of cards drawn mean **white cannot directly contribute to a Mill victory** in any meaningful fashion. It's removal, protection, recursion and flickering capabilities may prove invaluable depending on your build though.

 Wheel effects are symmetrical, but we can prevent them causing us to lose the game by stopping the wheels in their tracks... for us at least.

 In commander you only need to be the last person standing. The same logic holds true for surviving symmetrical wheel effects... If your opponents have fewer cards in their library, you can just barely survive while they lose.

 Green can only do self-mill, right?... Well Green can turn self-mill into power, and Altar of Dementia can turn that power into Mill. Alternatively, Fungal sprouting can turn that power into creatures which Altar of the Brood can turn into Mill.

 Green can convert creatures into both mana and card draw, perfect to cast more creatures until you draw your way into a mill-based mana-sink

 Red's wheel effects can stand in for milling, but they only get you so far... Well green can turn that card draw into power, and Altar of Dementia can turn that power into Mill.

 If you are able to generate an infinite combo, there is normally a way to weaponize it for Mill, either with Altar of the Brood (for infinite ETBs), Altar of Dementia for infinite tokens, or Dross Scorpion + Codex Shredder for infinite dies triggers.

 Red's wheel effects replace the cards in your hand but cost mana... Red's ritual effects provide mana but cost a card in your hand... With the right density of both you can set up a chain reaction that will blaze through most of the cards in all players decks and set you up to cast Storm cards you might be able to use to mill out your opponents with Altar of the Brood or Altar of Dementia

### **Pillowfort**

The biggest weakness of dedicated mill is that you may not be contributing creatures to the board to hold back your opponents. If this is a weakness it can often be remedied with some Pillowfort effects to negate your opponent's advantage
**Example Cards:**Dawnstrider, Propaganda, No Mercy
### **Self-Mill**

If you are running Symmetrical mill effects to target all your opponents' libraries at once, why not also get rewarded for filling Your Graveyard?
**Example Cards:**Crawling Sensation, Guiltfeeder
### **Reanimator**

Since you are putting cards in people's graveyard, why not use that as an opening to drag their creature cards directly onto the battlefield? This also gives you another angle to be able to protect certain key components (at least those that are creatures)
### **Wheels**

If you are running Symmetrical mill effects to target all your opponents' libraries at once, why not consider having those cards go via their hand first? wheel spells allow you to exchange cards you don't need right now for cards you may want later while also emptying your opponent's libraries and disrupting their hand. In addition, Wheel effects can cause opponents to lose the game immediately by drawing cards that aren't in their library, as opposed to waiting for them to draw at the beginning of their turn when they have untapped lands.
### **Group Hug**

It may seem counter-intuitive, but mass card-draw can have the same net effect of removing cards from your opponent's libraries, as well as giving you more options and ammunition to target those libraries, and can cause opponents to lose the game immediately by drawing cards that aren't in their library, as opposed to waiting for them to draw at the beginning of their turn when they have untapped lands. Just be aware this can increase their access to tools to attempt to undo your milling.

**References:**

* EDHREC Mill theme
* Mill tagged articles on EDHRec
* The Math Behind Mill
* Oracle Changes: Milling About