Simic Mill - Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy Primer

[ChaoticOrderr]

Hello Again!

I had a lot of fun writing my last primer on Kardur, Doomscourge. So I decided to write one for my main deck.

This deck is my personal favorite and I'd love to share it with ya'll. I would appreciate any and all CC. Thank you for your time!

https://deckstats.net/decks/113239/2277519-draw-and-mill#show_description

[ChaoticOrderr]

Based on Advice I got on my last primer, I have added a Why am I not playing "*X"? section with these cards addressed:

**Amulet of Vigor**: I am choosing to run Tiller Engine over this. Because it's the budget option. I mention it in the **Upgrades & Budget Options** section as a card to add to the deck if you want to up the power level.

**Rampaging Baloths**: I have considered running this card, but I chose to go with Zendikar's Roil instead. Due to the fact that it's 1 mana cheaper and it's an enchantment. Thus making it harder to remove.

**Tatyova, Benthic Druid**: She is very powerful... And well-known. Thus drawing more hate than the deck wants to deal with. Also, she pushed the deck into becoming more landfall-focused rather than mill.

**Gretchen Titchwillow**: The deck is already mana-hungry as it is. I found through playtesting that I would never really use her ability because of its steep cost. There were always other things that I'd rather be spending my 4 mana on.

**Eternal Witness**: This one hurts not to play. I love this card and its versatility. Instead of relying on trying to get things back from the grave, I have tried to build the deck to be redundant and resilient. So even if something gets blown up, you can replace it with something similar.

**Omen Hawker, Delighted Halfling, or Tireless Provisioner**: I have chosen to reduce the number of tap creatures in the deck. I want my ramp to come through lands.

[Morganator 2.0]

Mill is inherently weaker in Commander because instead of just one 60-card deck there are four 99-card decks, that's 297 cards!

Does this deck often play in pods of 5 players? Or is this a miscalculation?

You also do bring up a very good point about how mill is a generally weaker strategy than combat damage. So how is this deck able to do mill more effectively? About how often is this deck able to win by milling everyone out? And how do you not lose to combat damage before then?

And as always, I would like to know why these cards are excluded:

Arcane Signet
Court of Cunning
Explore
Fleet Swallower
Ramunap Excavator
Seedborn Muse
Traumatize
Wilderness Reclamation

[ChaoticOrderr]

Does this deck often play in pods of 5 players? Or is this a miscalculation?

Ah, this was indeed a miscalculation, but also yes- this deck is played in pods of more than 4. I'll go back and fix my mistake.

You also do bring up a very good point about how mill is a generally weaker strategy than combat damage. So how is this deck able to do mill more effectively? About how often is this deck able to win by milling everyone out? And how do you not lose to combat damage before then?

• I'll add more into the Simic Mill? section to explain better how this deck mills whole tables.
• This deck has only ever won by milling out the last 1 or 2 other players at the table. According to a game tracking spreadsheet that I have for my decks, this one has a about 20% win rate.
• Ah, that was certainly a big problem for the early versions of the deck. I mention it but I can make it more obvious or I'll explain it in an FAQ. I use cards that generate tokens as my main source of protection. I also use Propaganda and Maze of Ith in addition to the wall of tokens.

I'll add the reasons as to why I am not playing the following cards to the list, but here they are for your convince:
Arcane Signet: Besides Sol Ring and Thought Vessel(which is only there for the no max hand size), I have chosen to exclude any form of artifact ramp to the deck. In the early builds of the deck, there were a few signets and other forms of artifact ramp(Bauble for example), however, whenever I would draw/play one I would always end up wishing it was a land instead. So I overtime ended up cutting out all of the mana rocks and replacing them with land ramp instead.

Court of Cunning: Court of Cunning used to be in here but what I found is that It would just draw unnecessary hate from the table. Mill is already a strategy that comes with a lot of prejudice towards it, so giving opponents another reason to hit me wasn't in my best interest. I also could never keep the monarch long enough to have the second half of the effect to trigger. Once it was gone I couldn't ever get it back.

Explore: This was just more of a matter of not having enough space and having to choose what cards to cut. Explore lost out to Growth Spiral in the end.

Fleet Swallower & Traumatize: Ah These used to also be in the deck. Milling half of someone's library is a very tempting effect. In the case of Fleet Fleet Swallower, this deck(as well as my playstyle) tends to ignore the fact that there is even a combat step. With Traumatize, I like my mill to be repeatable and not a one-off effect. And for both, they just drew way too much heat, If I played either one it would usually make me the #1 threat at the table or it would at least cause the table to point all of their removal at me for a bit.

Ramunap Excavator: This is one that I have considered adding to the deck. I guess that I never felt the need to be able to play my fetch lands out of the grave. Because the deck isn't really centered around landfall as a mechanic. Besides the five cards that care about lands entering (Zendikar's Roil, Retreat to Coralhelm, Tiller Engine, and the two mill crabs) there isn't anything that cares about my lands entering. The mass amount of lands that I am playing is so I can dump my hand and pay for my draw spells.

Seedborn Muse & Wilderness Reclamation: I don't have a reason for not including them in the deck other than I don't own either one or I don't know what I would cut to make space for them. The deck is already very tight on how many cards should be in each section.


Also, I have made edits to my deck and will be updating the primer to reflect those changes.