The Mill Deck in Shadows over Innistrad Draft

Shadows over Innistrad has a handful of mill effects: Vessel of Paramnesia at Common, Manic Scribe and Fleeting Memories at Uncommon, and Startled Awake at Mythic. However, the recurring mill effects are all Uncommon or Mythic, and an eight-person Shadows over Innistrad draft has an average of 0.9 copies of any given Uncommon and 0.2 copies of any given Mythic, so I'd thought these cards were only useful as a secondary or postboard plan, and that there wasn't a dedicated mill deck in the format. It turns out I was wrong.

During a draft last week, I took a Manic Scribe first pick out of a relatively weak pack, where the only other card of note was Throttle. Manic Scribe was a riskier pick, but I hadn't drafted this archetype before in Shadows over Innistrad, and was willing to abandon my first pick if I didn't get the cards I needed for the deck. Luckily, the deck did come together. Here's the deck I drafted:

The sideboard contained the following cards:

• Blue (3): 2 Fleeting Memories, Furtive Homunculus
• Black (8): Throttle, Creeping Dread, Merciless Resolve, 3 Vessel of Malignity, 2 Stallion of Ashmouth
• Green (5): Cryptolith Rite, 2 Confront the Unknown, Kessig Dire Swine, Byway Courier
• Red (1): Burn from Within
• White (1): Topplegeist
• Land (1): Highland Lake

The deck ended up being very strong. The only game I lost in the three matches I played was due to colorscrew. I won one game by "curving out" with Crow of Dark Tidings, Rottenheart Ghoul, and From Under the Floorboards, followed by a series of removal spells. The rest of the games were won by milling out my opponent. Manic Scribe was the deck's linchpin, but Tooth Collector, From Under the Floorboards, and Gone Missing were also all-stars. From Under the Floorboards' lifegain was often just as relevant as the creatures, and Gone Missing was usually a Time Walk and hard removal if I had a mill effect.

The archetype turned out to be much stronger than I'd expected, for several reasons:

• The deck is very good at finding Manic Scribe even if you don't draw it. Pieces of the Puzzle helps you get it in your graveyard and find the Macabre Waltz to bring it back. If I don't draw either of my Manic Scribes, Pieces of the Puzzle played on turn 3 has a 30% chance of putting one or both of them in my graveyard. And while it's less likely to find my one copy of Macabre Waltz, chances are good that it'll find a Catalog or the other Pieces of the Puzzle to continue the search. Catalog doesn't dig as deep as Pieces of the Puzzle, but also doesn't need to find Macabre Waltz. Finally, Vessel of Paramnesia and Crow of Dark Tidings can help you mill to your Manic Scribe, though it doesn't help you find the Macabre Waltz to go with it.
• Manic Scribe is a relatively fast clock if you have Delirium. If you hit Delirium on turn N on the play, your opponent has 31 - N cards left in their deck, and starts to lose four of those each turn (including the card they draw during their draw step). If you hit Delirium on turn 3 or 4, your opponent loses the game on turn 10 without any additional help, and the removal and defensive creatures in the deck mean you can usually survive to that point. You can also speed up the clock a turn by playing Vessel of Paramnesia or by bouncing and replaying Manic Scribe. The speed of the clock means that a win by milling is theoretically possible unless Manic Scribe is in the bottom five or six cards of your library. It also means that I was rarely worried about helping my opponent hit Delirium since the game didn't usually continue long enough for their Delirium abilities to be relevant.
• It's easy to hit Delirum in this deck. Pieces of the Puzzle and Vessel of Paramnesia usually gets you there, while Catalog usually gets you halfway there. Also, Thraben Gargoyle and Wicker Witch are artifact creatures and get you halfway to Delirium single-handedly if they die or are milled.
• Manic Scribe is also a decent blocker, somewhat difficult to kill, and turns Gone Missing into hard removal if your opponent isn't able to draw a card before their draw step.
• If your opponent manages to kill Manic Scribe, you can usually use Macabre Waltz to bring it back. There aren't that many ways to exile creatures in this format. An eight-person draft has an average of 6.7 cards that can exile creatures:
  • 3.6 in White: Angelic Purge, Avacynian Missionaries, Declaration in Stone, and Descend upon the Sinful.
  • 2.5 in Red: Reduce to Ashes and Burn from Within.
  • 0.6 multicolor: Anguished Unmaking and Nahiri, the Harbinger.
• Manic Scribe and many of the other cards in this deck are not high picks in other archetypes.
• This deck has few one-toughness creatures, and so is less vulnerable to Dual Shot, Tooth Collector, and Avacyn's Judgment, all of which have blown me out in prior drafts. On the other hand, my Tooth Collector and Engulf the Shore were quite strong against multiple opponents with low-toughness creatures.

Now that I've covered how the deck works, we can group the cards in the deck into four functional categories instead:

• Two recurring mill effects: 2 Manic Scribe
• Seven cards to find Manic Scribe and/or hit Delirium: 2 Catalog, 2 Pieces of the Puzzle, 2 Vessel of Paramnesia, Macabre Waltz
• Nine removal/tempo cards: 2 Gone Missing, 2 Throttle, Engulf the Shore, Sleep Paralysis, Compelling Deterrence, Tooth Collector, Stitched Mangler
• Five other creatures: Thraben Gargoyle, Crow of Dark Tidings, Wicker Witch, Rottenheart Ghoul, From Under the Floorboards

I made a couple of mistakes during the draft because I hadn't attempted this archetype before:

• I saw two Rise from the Tides quite late in pack one, but didn't take either because I didn't realize how creature-light this archetype is and how efficient it is at putting cards in its own graveyard. My deck had 12 instants and sorceries, and many games ended with 6-8 instants/sorceries in my graveyard. Rise from the Tides would have made my maindeck if I hadn't gotten a second Manic Scribe.
• I had two Fleeting Memories, so I should have been paying more attention to how many cards produced Clues. I didn't see any Drownyard Explorers, but did pass two Press for Answers, two Jace's Scrutiny, and a Trail of Evidence. As with Rise from the Tides, they would primarily have been useful if I hadn't gotten a second Manic Scribe.
• I passed two Reckless Scholars, one for From Under the Floorboards, and another for a second pick Burn from Within in pack three (since I already had a Highland Lake). The Burn from Within sat in my sideboard, while Reckless Scholar would definitely have made my maindeck (probably over a Catalog or Throttle). You can also use it to make your opponent draw and discard a card, and there were a couple of games where it would have let me win a turn sooner.

Other Variants

Shadows over Innistrad draft also offers the potential of a Blue/Green Manic Scribe mill deck and a Fleeting Memories mill deck.

Black's most important contribution to my deck was Macabre Waltz, while Green has a number of things to offer the Manic Scribe mill deck:

• Vessel of Nascency, Duskwatch Recruiter, and Traverse the Ulvenwald can help find Manic Scribe.
• Vessel of Nascency and Crawling Sensation can help you hit Delirium, as can Autumnal Gloom if you splash Black.
• Green can help splash Black for Macabre Waltz (or White for Not Forgotten if you're really desperate), and also has Seasons Past to get Manic Scribe back from your graveyard.

Black and Green both seem like good options to pair with Blue in a Manic Scribe mill deck. Black offers more removal, has Ever After, and doesn't require splashing a third color, while Green offers more ways to find Manic Scribe and more 2-drops, including including Moldgraf Scavenger. It also provides more ways to make Clues if you are also playing Fleeting Memories.

A dedicated Fleeting Memories mill deck seems less exciting, however. In an eight-person Shadows over Innistrad draft, Blue, Green, and White have, on average, 12.4, 9.4, and 7.6 cards respectively that produce Clues. However, Confront the Unknown and Ulvenwald Mysteries are better suited to an aggressive deck, while Root Out is a sideboard card, so Green is probably not a good fit. White offers few ways to hit Delirium and no cards that interact with Clues. Green has Confront the Unknown, Briarbridge Patrol, Graf Mole, Ulvenwald Mysteries, and Tireless Tracker.

A Fleeting Memories mill deck also has some other issues:

• Seasons Past, a Mythic, is the only card in the set that allows you to get Fleeting Memories back from your graveyard if you accidentally mill it away or if your opponent destroys it. Vessel of Nascency and card draw spells like Catalog are the only other ways to search for Fleeting Memories.
• Sacrificing Clues, either to find Fleeting Memories or to mill your opponent once you've found it, requires mana, unlike Manic Scribe's triggered ability.
• If you have to sacrifice Clues to find Fleeting Memories, you may not have many (or any) left to trigger its ability once you do find it.

Conclusion

The mill deck is stronger than I'd realized. While it does require at least one copy of Manic Scribe, an Uncommon, there are a number of cards that can help you find it more consistently. If you have a Macabre Waltz in your deck, Pieces of the Puzzle can help you get Manic Scribe into your graveyard and help find the Macabre Waltz. Macabre Waltz is the only key Black card in the deck, so the deck doesn't have to be Blue/Black, but can also be Blue/Green splashing Black.

If you don't get a second Manic Scribe, you can try to make use of Fleeting Memories if you're Blue/Green, or you can look to Rise from the Tides as an alternate win condition.