Pojo.com Forums - View Single Post

kansashoops · 08-26-2005, 03:44 PM

Since Jorge Fabian Pina Lizarraga's second place finish at worlds with a mill deck, this deck type has been getting an increasing amount of interest. At napay's request, I am posting this thread to explain how my version of the mill deck works, and how you play it. For additional information, I suggest you read Jorge's own tournament report, which includes his deck list for worlds:

http://www.deckrevolution.com/gl/art...50823205634367

My own deck is similar to his, but has a few subtle differences:

Monsters - 5
------------
1x Cyber Jar
1x Morphing Jar
1x Sangan
2x Mystic Tomato

Traps - 4
---------
2x Rock Bombardment
2x Desert Sunlight

Spells - 31
-----------
3x Reload
1x Card Destruction
1x Pot of Greed
1x Graceful Charity
2x Upstart Goblin
1x Premature Burial
3x Spell Reproduction
2x Feather of the Phoenix
3x Shallow Grave
3x Book of Taiyou
2x Book of Moon
3x Giant Trunade
1x Swords of Revealing Light
2x Level Limit Area B
1x Serial Spell
2x Monster Reincarnation

Side Deck
=========
1x Mystic Tomato
1x Giant Rat
3x Solemn Judgment
2x Gravity Bind
1x Double Spell
2x Prohibition
1x Heavy Storm
1x Serial Spell
1x Messenger of Peace
2x Dragged Down into the Grave

Main Deck Strategy
------------------

The main combo for this deck is really just Cyber Jar-Book of Taiyou. That's the pair of cards you are trying to get initially, and all you need to get things started. (If you play Desert Sunlight, as I do, you can use that instead of Book of Taiyou, but you can't win on your first turn.) After the initial Cyber Jar flip, the combo you are looking for becomes Shallow Grave-Book of Taiyou. Once your opponent has a monster in the graveyard, Shallow Grave is the easiest way to get Cyber Jar back to the field in face-down position. Almost everything else in the deck is intended 1) to help you get those cards, 2) to reuse those cards, or 3) to survive long enough to get them.

Once the deck's Cyber Jar-flipping engine gets working, you can start thinking about your secondary objective, which is to get Card Destruction and Serial Spell in hand. This is the deck's signature finishing move, and the easiest way to win. After loading up your opponent's hand by playing Cyber Jar repeatedly, you play Card Destruction, then chain Serial Spell to it. This does two things: 1) you discard your entire hand (the cost of activating Serial Spell) but draw nothing (because your hand is empty when Card Destruction resolves), and 2) your opponent must discard and redraw his entire hand, twice. Generally, if you can flip Cyber Jar 3 times in succession, the opponent's hand will be large enough that you can finish them with the Card Destruction-Serial Spell combo, and normally you will have acquired those two cards along the way.

In many duels, you will not be able to get Cyber Jar early, and winning becomes quite a challenge. Learning how to do this is the key to consistent success with this deck. Your best weapons in the absence of Cyber Jar are Morphing Jar, Reload and Card Destruction. Many times I have won by flipping Morphing Jar up and down a couple of times until I could get my hands on Cyber Jar, then launching the main combos. Other times I have won by playing Card Destruction early on when I had a garbage hand. This can refesh your hand and generate momentum. You can also use Reload, of course, to get a fresh hand. Sometimes it makes sense to do something like set Book of Taiyou and play Redraw, hoping for a Jar. But you have to be careful with it. It's easy to talk yourself into playing Redraw a couple of times in a row and whittling your hand down to nothing, sealing your fate. Always ask yourself if it would maybe be better to wait one more turn. If you get lucky and draw into Graceful or Pot, that garbage hand can get better in a hurry.

Important note about Cyber Jar: The ruling on this card is that the card's text says "pick up," not "draw," so you can never deck out as a result of Cyber Jar's effect. This can be important at the end of a duel if your opponent still has cards and you don't. If you need to flip Cyber Jar one more time before playing Card Destruction-Serial Spell, it's OK to do so, even if you have no cards in your deck. (Just make sure you have at least one extra card in hand to discard for Serial Spell.) You don't lose because of an empty deck until you fail to DRAW a card when you are supposed to, either because it's your draw phase, or because a card's effect requires it. Very important.

Tip: Don't underestimate the value of Feather of the Phoenix. If you are about to do something that makes you draw, and you know that you want a specific card out of that draw, go ahead and use Feather of the Phoenix to put it there. Shallow Grave, Book of Taiyou, Card Destruction, Serial Spell, and Spell Reproduction are the most likely suspects here. It also combos nicely with Upstart Goblin in cases where you want to draw that one card immediately.

Side Deck
---------
My own sidedeck is a work in progress. Currently it consists mostly of cards I can sub in to change the mechanics of the deck. For example, I could take out the 2x Rock Bombardment and 2x Desert Sunlight if I were facing a deck with 2-3x Royal Decree, and put in 2x Dragged Down into the Grave, 1x Serial Spell, and 1x Messenger of Peace instead. The Solemn Judgments are mainly for use against alternate win decks (like Last Turn) and other OTK decks (such as Ben Kai or Cyber-Stein). The Gravity Binds are for use against Horus and Silent Swordsman decks, which won't be affected by Level Limit Area B. The Prohibitions are mainly for use against people who have sided in Neko Mane King, which can stop this deck on a dime. (If you play Prohibition, Neko Mane King doesn't get its effect.) I'm thinking about replacing Giant Rat with a third copy of Prohibition.

Simulated Game
--------------

In order to explain clearly how this deck works, and how the main cards function within it, I played a simulated game against an imaginary opponent and recorded the sequence of events. Here it is:

My opening hand: Book of Taiyou, Giant Trunade, Swords, Shallow Grave, Card Destruction, Sangan. I could tell when I drew it that this was almost certainly going to be a one turn kill.

My Turn 1:

- Summon Sangan and end. I could have played Swords of Revealing Light, but I want the opponent to attack my Sangan. I summoned rather than set because I didn't want it being hit with Nobleman. That's more important than the loss of life points.

His Turn 1:

- I assume that the opponent kills Sangan, and that I pull Cyber Jar with its effect. I take some irrelevant life point damage.

My Turn 2:

- Draw Rock Bombardment. If he hadn't killed Sangan, I'd be using this to pull a Jar out of the deck and put it in the graveyard.

- Play Giant Trunade, assuming that he set a spell or trap on his turn, just in case. If he plays Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell on my Book of Taiyou, I'm in trouble. Better safe than sorry.

- Set Cyber Jar, then play Book of Taiyou to flip it.

- Pick up (not draw): Morphing Jar (set it), Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Giant Trunade, Spell Reproduction

- My hand now, 7 cards: Swords, Shallow Grave, Card Destruction, Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Giant Trunade, Spell Reproduction

- His hand now: 6-7 cards? You can figure his hand will grow by an average of 3 each time Cyber Jar is flipped.

- Play Shallow Grave (the Cyber Jar sent the monster that killed Sangan to the graveyard), summon Cyber Jar face down

- Play Spell Reproduction (discarding Giant Trunade, Level Limit Area B) to get back Book of Taiyou

- My hand (5): Swords, Card Destruction, Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Book of Taiyou

- Play Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar

- Pick up: Upstart Goblin x2, Desert Sunlight, Reload, Mystic Tomato (set it)

- My hand: Not good at the moment. No way to recycle Cyber Jar.

- His hand: 9-10 cards?

- Hoping for the best, set Card Destruction face down, and play Reload for 6. I'll use Card Destruction if I still have garbage after this.

- Drawn with Reload: Monster Reincarnation, Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Book of Moon. Whew.

- Play Pot, drawing Premature Burial and Desert Sunlight

- Play Graceful, drawing Swords, Book of Taiyou, Book of Moon; discard Desert Sunlight, Monster Reincarnation

- My hand (7): Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Book of Moon x2, Premature Burial, Swords, Book of Taiyou

- Card Destruction is set on the field

- Play Premature Burial on Cyber Jar, then Book of Moon. I used Giant Trunade earlier, so I don't have to worry about Premature being Dusted.

- Play Book of Taiyou to flip it

- Pick up: Mystic Tomato (set it), Monster Reincarnation, Rock Bombardment, Giant Trunade, Desert Sunlight

- My hand (8): Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Swords, Book of Moon, Monster Reincarnation, Rock Bombardment, Giant Trunade, Desert Sunlight

- His hand: 12-13 cards?

- My hand stinks! Must get creative again. (Anyone who thinks winning with these decks is based on sheer luck is mistaken.)

- Set Spell Reproduction and Upstart Goblin, the only valuable cards in hand.

- Play Card Destruction from the field, discarding 6 and drawing 6. Opponent discards and draws 12-13.

- New hand (6): Reload, Level Limit Area B, Shallow Grave, Spell Reproduction, Feather of the Phoenix, Rock Bombardment

- My field: Spell Reproduction and Upstart Goblin (set)

- Play Feather of the Phoenix (discarding Rock Bombardment) to put Book of Taiyou on top of my deck

- Play Upstart Goblin to draw Book of Taiyou

- Play Shallow Grave, then Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar again

- His hand: 15-16 cards?

- Pick up: Feather of the Phoenix, Book of Taiyou, Shallow Grave, Reload, Upstart Goblin

- My hand (8): Reload x2, Level Limit Area B, Spell Reproduction, Feather of the Phoenix, Book of Taiyou, Shallow Grave, Upstart Goblin

- My field: Spell Reproduction (set)

- My deck: only 1 card left -- it's the Serial Spell I need!! Arrgh.

- Play Shallow Grave, then Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar again

- Pick up: Serial Spell. It doesn't matter that my deck is empty and I could only pick up 1 card instead of 5. I'm OK until something makes me DRAW.

- His hand: 18-19 cards? He is probably decked out at this point. If so, I can end, and he'll lose when he can't draw in his draw phase. But I'll assume that I have to keep going. (I lost a duel last week to a guy with a 60-card deck...)

- Play Spell Reproduction (discarding Reload x2) to get back Card Destruction from graveyard

- Play Card Destruction, then chain Serial Spell to it

- My imaginary opponent discards and draws 18-19 cards TWICE, so even a 70+ card deck would be decked out at this point

- Game over

08-26-2005, 03:44 PM	#1
kansashoops Pojo Veteran Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Colorado Springs Posts: 812 iTrader: 0	Mill Deck Strategy Since Jorge Fabian Pina Lizarraga's second place finish at worlds with a mill deck, this deck type has been getting an increasing amount of interest. At napay's request, I am posting this thread to explain how my version of the mill deck works, and how you play it. For additional information, I suggest you read Jorge's own tournament report, which includes his deck list for worlds: http://www.deckrevolution.com/gl/art...50823205634367 My own deck is similar to his, but has a few subtle differences: Monsters - 5 ------------ 1x Cyber Jar 1x Morphing Jar 1x Sangan 2x Mystic Tomato Traps - 4 --------- 2x Rock Bombardment 2x Desert Sunlight Spells - 31 ----------- 3x Reload 1x Card Destruction 1x Pot of Greed 1x Graceful Charity 2x Upstart Goblin 1x Premature Burial 3x Spell Reproduction 2x Feather of the Phoenix 3x Shallow Grave 3x Book of Taiyou 2x Book of Moon 3x Giant Trunade 1x Swords of Revealing Light 2x Level Limit Area B 1x Serial Spell 2x Monster Reincarnation Side Deck ========= 1x Mystic Tomato 1x Giant Rat 3x Solemn Judgment 2x Gravity Bind 1x Double Spell 2x Prohibition 1x Heavy Storm 1x Serial Spell 1x Messenger of Peace 2x Dragged Down into the Grave Main Deck Strategy ------------------ The main combo for this deck is really just Cyber Jar-Book of Taiyou. That's the pair of cards you are trying to get initially, and all you need to get things started. (If you play Desert Sunlight, as I do, you can use that instead of Book of Taiyou, but you can't win on your first turn.) After the initial Cyber Jar flip, the combo you are looking for becomes Shallow Grave-Book of Taiyou. Once your opponent has a monster in the graveyard, Shallow Grave is the easiest way to get Cyber Jar back to the field in face-down position. Almost everything else in the deck is intended 1) to help you get those cards, 2) to reuse those cards, or 3) to survive long enough to get them. Once the deck's Cyber Jar-flipping engine gets working, you can start thinking about your secondary objective, which is to get Card Destruction and Serial Spell in hand. This is the deck's signature finishing move, and the easiest way to win. After loading up your opponent's hand by playing Cyber Jar repeatedly, you play Card Destruction, then chain Serial Spell to it. This does two things: 1) you discard your entire hand (the cost of activating Serial Spell) but draw nothing (because your hand is empty when Card Destruction resolves), and 2) your opponent must discard and redraw his entire hand, twice. Generally, if you can flip Cyber Jar 3 times in succession, the opponent's hand will be large enough that you can finish them with the Card Destruction-Serial Spell combo, and normally you will have acquired those two cards along the way. In many duels, you will not be able to get Cyber Jar early, and winning becomes quite a challenge. Learning how to do this is the key to consistent success with this deck. Your best weapons in the absence of Cyber Jar are Morphing Jar, Reload and Card Destruction. Many times I have won by flipping Morphing Jar up and down a couple of times until I could get my hands on Cyber Jar, then launching the main combos. Other times I have won by playing Card Destruction early on when I had a garbage hand. This can refesh your hand and generate momentum. You can also use Reload, of course, to get a fresh hand. Sometimes it makes sense to do something like set Book of Taiyou and play Redraw, hoping for a Jar. But you have to be careful with it. It's easy to talk yourself into playing Redraw a couple of times in a row and whittling your hand down to nothing, sealing your fate. Always ask yourself if it would maybe be better to wait one more turn. If you get lucky and draw into Graceful or Pot, that garbage hand can get better in a hurry. Important note about Cyber Jar: The ruling on this card is that the card's text says "pick up," not "draw," so you can never deck out as a result of Cyber Jar's effect. This can be important at the end of a duel if your opponent still has cards and you don't. If you need to flip Cyber Jar one more time before playing Card Destruction-Serial Spell, it's OK to do so, even if you have no cards in your deck. (Just make sure you have at least one extra card in hand to discard for Serial Spell.) You don't lose because of an empty deck until you fail to DRAW a card when you are supposed to, either because it's your draw phase, or because a card's effect requires it. Very important. Tip: Don't underestimate the value of Feather of the Phoenix. If you are about to do something that makes you draw, and you know that you want a specific card out of that draw, go ahead and use Feather of the Phoenix to put it there. Shallow Grave, Book of Taiyou, Card Destruction, Serial Spell, and Spell Reproduction are the most likely suspects here. It also combos nicely with Upstart Goblin in cases where you want to draw that one card immediately. Side Deck --------- My own sidedeck is a work in progress. Currently it consists mostly of cards I can sub in to change the mechanics of the deck. For example, I could take out the 2x Rock Bombardment and 2x Desert Sunlight if I were facing a deck with 2-3x Royal Decree, and put in 2x Dragged Down into the Grave, 1x Serial Spell, and 1x Messenger of Peace instead. The Solemn Judgments are mainly for use against alternate win decks (like Last Turn) and other OTK decks (such as Ben Kai or Cyber-Stein). The Gravity Binds are for use against Horus and Silent Swordsman decks, which won't be affected by Level Limit Area B. The Prohibitions are mainly for use against people who have sided in Neko Mane King, which can stop this deck on a dime. (If you play Prohibition, Neko Mane King doesn't get its effect.) I'm thinking about replacing Giant Rat with a third copy of Prohibition. Simulated Game -------------- In order to explain clearly how this deck works, and how the main cards function within it, I played a simulated game against an imaginary opponent and recorded the sequence of events. Here it is: My opening hand: Book of Taiyou, Giant Trunade, Swords, Shallow Grave, Card Destruction, Sangan. I could tell when I drew it that this was almost certainly going to be a one turn kill. My Turn 1: - Summon Sangan and end. I could have played Swords of Revealing Light, but I want the opponent to attack my Sangan. I summoned rather than set because I didn't want it being hit with Nobleman. That's more important than the loss of life points. His Turn 1: - I assume that the opponent kills Sangan, and that I pull Cyber Jar with its effect. I take some irrelevant life point damage. My Turn 2: - Draw Rock Bombardment. If he hadn't killed Sangan, I'd be using this to pull a Jar out of the deck and put it in the graveyard. - Play Giant Trunade, assuming that he set a spell or trap on his turn, just in case. If he plays Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell on my Book of Taiyou, I'm in trouble. Better safe than sorry. - Set Cyber Jar, then play Book of Taiyou to flip it. - Pick up (not draw): Morphing Jar (set it), Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Giant Trunade, Spell Reproduction - My hand now, 7 cards: Swords, Shallow Grave, Card Destruction, Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Giant Trunade, Spell Reproduction - His hand now: 6-7 cards? You can figure his hand will grow by an average of 3 each time Cyber Jar is flipped. - Play Shallow Grave (the Cyber Jar sent the monster that killed Sangan to the graveyard), summon Cyber Jar face down - Play Spell Reproduction (discarding Giant Trunade, Level Limit Area B) to get back Book of Taiyou - My hand (5): Swords, Card Destruction, Level Limit Area B, Book of Moon, Book of Taiyou - Play Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar - Pick up: Upstart Goblin x2, Desert Sunlight, Reload, Mystic Tomato (set it) - My hand: Not good at the moment. No way to recycle Cyber Jar. - His hand: 9-10 cards? - Hoping for the best, set Card Destruction face down, and play Reload for 6. I'll use Card Destruction if I still have garbage after this. - Drawn with Reload: Monster Reincarnation, Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Book of Moon. Whew. - Play Pot, drawing Premature Burial and Desert Sunlight - Play Graceful, drawing Swords, Book of Taiyou, Book of Moon; discard Desert Sunlight, Monster Reincarnation - My hand (7): Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Book of Moon x2, Premature Burial, Swords, Book of Taiyou - Card Destruction is set on the field - Play Premature Burial on Cyber Jar, then Book of Moon. I used Giant Trunade earlier, so I don't have to worry about Premature being Dusted. - Play Book of Taiyou to flip it - Pick up: Mystic Tomato (set it), Monster Reincarnation, Rock Bombardment, Giant Trunade, Desert Sunlight - My hand (8): Spell Reproduction, Upstart Goblin, Swords, Book of Moon, Monster Reincarnation, Rock Bombardment, Giant Trunade, Desert Sunlight - His hand: 12-13 cards? - My hand stinks! Must get creative again. (Anyone who thinks winning with these decks is based on sheer luck is mistaken.) - Set Spell Reproduction and Upstart Goblin, the only valuable cards in hand. - Play Card Destruction from the field, discarding 6 and drawing 6. Opponent discards and draws 12-13. - New hand (6): Reload, Level Limit Area B, Shallow Grave, Spell Reproduction, Feather of the Phoenix, Rock Bombardment - My field: Spell Reproduction and Upstart Goblin (set) - Play Feather of the Phoenix (discarding Rock Bombardment) to put Book of Taiyou on top of my deck - Play Upstart Goblin to draw Book of Taiyou - Play Shallow Grave, then Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar again - His hand: 15-16 cards? - Pick up: Feather of the Phoenix, Book of Taiyou, Shallow Grave, Reload, Upstart Goblin - My hand (8): Reload x2, Level Limit Area B, Spell Reproduction, Feather of the Phoenix, Book of Taiyou, Shallow Grave, Upstart Goblin - My field: Spell Reproduction (set) - My deck: only 1 card left -- it's the Serial Spell I need!! Arrgh. - Play Shallow Grave, then Book of Taiyou to flip Cyber Jar again - Pick up: Serial Spell. It doesn't matter that my deck is empty and I could only pick up 1 card instead of 5. I'm OK until something makes me DRAW. - His hand: 18-19 cards? He is probably decked out at this point. If so, I can end, and he'll lose when he can't draw in his draw phase. But I'll assume that I have to keep going. (I lost a duel last week to a guy with a 60-card deck...) - Play Spell Reproduction (discarding Reload x2) to get back Card Destruction from graveyard - Play Card Destruction, then chain Serial Spell to it - My imaginary opponent discards and draws 18-19 cards TWICE, so even a 70+ card deck would be decked out at this point - Game over