I have building the same deck. I replaced the gomozoa with kalistria highborn for 2 damage. I also did not like the psychic miasmas I put in other discard. Mire's toll worked well. Another card that works ok is reckless scholar and sign in blood. SiB is good if you just have to get the 3rd counter. Then a final idea was archive trap for a finisher. 52 point life change is hard to resist. Might be good for the jace erasure. It works better. With all the draw card, it can win as long as they are not Eldrazi green.
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There are two specific things that wreck mill decks in standard. The big eldrazi and now the elixir of immortality. I would recommend leyline of the void for your main or sideboard (depending on metagame). Also clone and the jwari shapeshifter might be too many. I just see a hand of replicators with no creatures to copy. I would replace the jwari with hedron crabs or keep them and add another ally to copy. Otherwise it seems decent. Another trick is using the trapfinder and adding in whiplash trap. This goes well with bela ged.
Bloodthrone vampire+mitotic slime and/or grave titan...gg gelatinous...nor so much. bloodghast. x4 overgrown no, putrid no. Add more removal. bestial would be my reduction. sentences short. [scene] you might consider whispersilk cloak, good for titans, bloodthrone, and nighthawk. yet ramping mana might be important, so battlements might be a good keep. Consider Demon of deaths gate as well. reassmbling and bloodghasts make good sacs for the 9/9
Your lands are out of whack. You need some snow covered mountains to really keep it balanced
I have really enjoyed using demonic appetite with persecutor. It makes him 9/9 and he can be sac'd to himself. You could also use on the elves for a 4/4 or to keep your 9/9 for another turn.
Mortician beetle and consuming vapors.
Emrakul reads...When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library. I keep a single sideboarded emrakul and mill decks are dead. Other than that, the deck looks good, i'd put in bojuka bog.
With Academy Rector, why not put an eldrazi conscription into the deck and have a win condition the old fashion way?
I agree on the premise, journey is better but I have crystallization and O-Ring for that and if I switch to journey, i would decrease the number of Auras in the deck. This hurts gnarlid when he comes out. Also, with journey (and O-ring) when if I wipe the board with all is dust, back comes the creature leaving me unprotected. With O-Ring, I will often O-Ring my own O-Ring to set up a trap and then all is dust. Mostly though, pacifism works against most things I need to worry about. Also, they go great on Mesa enchantresses for those Gideons and for when I Open the vaults. I want to limit restrictions on casting open the vaults. Journeys would likely focus on my creatures where as I would only usually have 1 or 2 O-rings to fear. Thank you for the comment. Let me know if my thinking on this sounds solid.
The land becomes a creature. That is what is says. It is still a land as well. So it counts as both a land and a creature. If it didn't say it was still a land then it would be just a creature until end of turn. This is like Gideon Jura's ability which says it is still a planeswalker. So it counts toward Knotvine, and it counts for exalted.
I just finished playing this deck in an extended tournament. I faced a Jund deck (a really decent version, he didn't bring his extended decks to the tourney) I was able to win that round. I faced an Elf deck and went 1-1-1 into a tie. I would have won the last round but time ran out and I made an error and waited 1 turn to late to attack. I also faced an extended version of RDW. I was beat thoroughly by this deck. Lessons. Aura Finesse is fantastic. Open the vaults changes the game. Wall of omens should be replaced by Kor Spiritdancer for sure. Mind control should be replaced by domestication for main deck. Side deck might need to switch this to a spread 'em style deck. Convincing mirages and spreading seas, etc. Day of judgement rules against horde and overrun style decks. I did playtest this against super friends and was left without a response. The spread 'em might work a little better. Just needs something to deal with the planeswalkers. May have to consider Mesa enchantress with O-ring. Kor spiritdancer gets out faster and easier, It might just be better to give up the draw card on the 4 o-rings to get through the problems of the planeswalkers. Jace is the real issue. Garruck is a nuisance but not more than can be handle by the deck. Elspeth can actually help by making it hard for them to get rid of their creatures and leaving the enchants in play. Dunno. Need to consider options. Finally Sovereigns is a game ender. Aura Gnarlid is a killer. I swing for 6. I swing for 8, I swing for 9, I swing for 20. All in al I think this a great teir 2 deck, and if I can find the right combination of cards, It might be good for Tier 1 tournament level play. I will revise and post a new version soon.
I've been trying something similar. The problem I have had through my playtest is creature scarcity. All the enchants you have depend on having a creature to enchant. Meaning that if you do not draw into a creature and have a few lined up, you will usually get squashed pretty quickly. "In response to you casting xxx umbra, I terminate. Meet path, etc." So for it work, you tend to have to be lucky on your first hand draw, lucky to get your first umbra or better yet canopy, then after time lucky to get gnarlid out safely. After a while I decided to go with a pacify/mind control deck. Swapped my defensive aura's for offensive auras such as pacifism, guard duty, narcolepsy. domestication, and mind control. I keep the eel umbra because it can flash. Then kept the esential creatures, Kor, gnarlid, and Sovereign. I think of Kor as my cantrip creature and spot removal spell sponge. The domesticate and/or mind control, forces the opponent to waste their removal spells on their own creatures. Also you want at least two conscription, in case you draw one. Aura finesse is awesome with this style. If they cast a better creature, then finesse the mind control to the new one and pacify the old one. (draw two cards, steal a creature, and make the other useless for 2 mana.) Open the Vaults is still fine. Even if you day of judgement the creatures, your opponent will have a new one out usually on next turn. and all those auras can fall on that one creature while the gnarlid obliterates them. Gnarlid is the big monster here. Kor can be, but gnarlid doesn't need the auras on it to win. Also consider spreading seas especially for sideboard.
The thinking behind dispel was having 4 to increase the chance of having it in hand when I cast Polymorph. Since I would only poly on my turn, my opponent could mostly only stop it with an instant. Considering the other options during the game, it would stop terminates, bit blast (but not the cascade). Basically trying to avoid them taking out my spawn token while I cast polymorph. I would rather dump negates for more draw, which is needed in this deck. But I have been known to be wrong...often. Although after further review and some solitaire, I think I need to redo this deck a little, Thinking coat of arms and skittering. Will definitely, go for all emrakul with a sideboard of ulamog for thought hemorrhage. This will allow me to hard cast the giants if I need to. Also looking at twincast. Gonna try some options and see where it leads. BTW All is dust - hurts...bad.
Good point. I may switch this to blue/red. (I am not very good with blue...) but maybe this is the time to learn. Thinking of adding all is dust to deck. (it is not expensive enough you know...)
I have been using the trader deck and refining it. This is a very effective deck. I did swap out some things myself to make it more effective. Instead of blightning, I went with Bit Blast. Stone idol trap...no Went with 3 traders, 4th in sideboard. Went with 25 lands. Since RoE came out, I added Cosuming Vapors, which is perfect. Pay no attention to the others. they do not see how nasty this is to face. I like to call it, stop hitting yourself. What you don't take, you destroy, what you don't destroy, you make them destroy. And then, at the end, when they are top decking, you feed them an immortal coil. Abyssal is no issue. In fact, you can usually rely on them killing it for you. With enough creature destruction its no issue. Good job. 9/10
For eldrazi conscription, you overdraw your hand and dump it the graveyard. I avoided the pacifism because I would end up putting it one of my own when I OtV. Wall of denial is in my list for potential revisions and meta game restructure. its really good. Although I prefer palace guards with the umbras. For triggering aura gnarlid I was thinking enchant lands. Just too tight for the deck to throw them in. I am building a black, green, blue version of this which focuses on land chants.
I was just thinking further on the eel umbra. Turn 1 land Turn 2 land, kor spiritdancer Turn 3 land, Aura Gnarlid Turn 4 land, Bear Umbra on AG, draw card, Attack as 5/5, untap all lands, Eel umbra, hit for 7/7, second main phase, lifelink, hyena, and/or spider on kor, draw 1-2 cards or play another kor. Turn 5 land, make sure all have umbras. attack, DoJ. Turn 6 land, play auras, attack, OtV Turn 7... Yeah I might make room for eel umbra in the deck and put a little more blue mana source. A 7/7 "unblockable" on turn 4 is hard to resist.
Hindering light is just good enought o have it. It also opens up the sideboard for Meddling mage and crab umbra. I really wanted to put eel umbra in, but its benefit is just not synergetic enough for the deck. Crab's value over eel is that it costs 1 less to cast. With the draw cards in the deck, its an issue more of being able to feed through the deck quickly. In the earlier version I had much more value for the buck from single cost auras. but then my hand ended up being nothing but lands. This set seems to keep at least one aura ready for the next turn. I just updated the build to include the tajuru preserver (and ordered my playset) I had completely overlooked this card in RotE. I hope others will as well. =) Thanks for the comment!
I am building something similar. Wasn't considering Planeswalkers, but now that I see yours, Instead of Garruk, have you considered Elspeth? indestrucible enchantments? Also I am running a couple of open the vaults which is way cheaper for pulling the EC into play than waiting till turn 10 to cast it. If you are not running open or even sovereigns of lost alara, then consider Gigantiform. 5 mana casting cost is much easier to get out sooner and would have a greater impact in mid game.
I definitely can see the value. Lifelink is valuable because of the low mana cost and...well...life gain. Perhaps running O-Ring on the sideboard instead of spreading seas for an initial thought. trying to consider what to remove to add it as a mainboard item. Perhaps a swap for hindering light? 2 O-rings and a third OtV instead of hindering? though hindering is there to combat an opponents O-ring and even thought hemorrhage (target player). This deck feels so tight. Perhaps even canopy cover might be a good swap.
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