(Dimir MachinationsDimir Machinations | Art by Greg Staples)

The Truth Hurts

In Commander, it doesn’t make much sense to mill your opponents. There are certainly synergies and combos you can put together, but milling just can’t keep up.

Most mill cards are designed around a sixty-card deck in a one-on-one format. In Commander, you have to account for three 100-card decks.

Even if you go hard on politics so you only have to mill one or two opponents, you’ll likely run out of steam halfway through the game.

On the other hand, you can always build some alt-win contingencies into your deck. But then you’re making it even harder to focus on milling your opponents. This creates a negative feedback loop, where you need to focus even more on non-mill strategies.

The best way to combat this is to shift your mentality...

Bring only chaos. Leave only suffering.

The titular millstone, old but not forgotten.

Mill Yourself

The most straightforward way to bring milling to any game of Magic is to simply mill yourself. Afterall, who’s going to stop you?

From Golgari’s unhealthy obsession with recycling to blue’s misunderstanding of delayed gratification, you have plenty of options at your disposal.

Even red looks at the graveyard and thinks “yeah, that’s where I want my cards to be.”

Self-mill may not be wise, but it can be effective.

But Why Do That?

The main reason to self-mill is to expedite your ability to access certain abilities.

You can speedrun your cards from the library to the battlefield with Muldrotha, the GravetideMuldrotha, the Gravetide. Or you can create a horde of fungus zombies with The MycotyrantThe Mycotyrant.

You might prefer a less overtly fast-tracked influence on the game. Then a Grim DiscoveryGrim Discovery can always return the graveyard back into your hand.

Or you might prefer exciting and explosive turns. Underworld BreachUnderworld Breach facilitates exactly that, assuming you can pay the costs.

At its core, self-mill facilitates efficiency in your deck. Whatever you’re trying to do, self-milling will make it happen faster. Not only for Golgari colors, but across the color pie.

And if you’re playing against a black deck, maybe they’ll force some discards on you to help you out... if you ask nicely.

Allowing these cards anywhere near a graveyard is a mistake.

Trash Your Cards

But there’s more ways to get cards into your graveyard than just milling. Self-inflicted discarding and surveilling are the obvious choices.

But you can always sacrifice permanents that come back for round two. You can draw too many cards, being forced to discard at the end of your turn. The world is your oyster, if throwing away your hand were a pearl.

Self-Discard

Lowering costs a la Oskar, Rubbish ReclaimerOskar, Rubbish Reclaimer helps offset the wonky hands you’ll have trashing your cards. Discarding cards from your hand is basically playing them for free if your graveyard is accessible.

Hashaton, Scarab's FistHashaton, Scarab's Fist even lets you convert that into a small army! Combine this with Temmet, Naktamun's WillTemmet, Naktamun's Will and you can have an army of superpowered Zombies for the low cost of your entire hand.

A full graveyard can empower something like Rielle, the EverwiseRielle, the Everwise, but these sorts of cards’ strengths aren’t fully unlocked until you’re actively discarding cards.

Assuming you have an idea in-mind for a graveyard-centric deck, any combination of self-milling, surveilling, sacrificing, and self-discarding will be useful. So how do you actually go about discarding cards?

Blood Tokens

Blood tokens give limited discard while also synergizing with artifact and Vampire decks. While not the most mana-efficient, token generation can always be expedited.

Plus, these have enough synergy with certain Vampire cards to keep you alive as you put your library in a shredder.

These bloodsuckers are undead, the graveyard is their second home.

Activated Effects

Certain commanders, such as Anje FalkenrathAnje Falkenrath have activated abilities to discard. Others happen passively.

Whether used as your commander or not, having a few activated abilities to cause discards can ensure you have flexibility in your plays.

If you’re already milling your library, why not discard your hand?

Draw, Discard

Any number of “draw a card, then discard a card” effects exist in the game. Sometimes, you even end up with net positive card draw!

Other times, they have an alternative effect which is just as diabolical.

Izzet really does like tinkering with trashed cards.

Surveil?

Surveilling is really just self-mill but with the added benefit of walking-back your choice if you want what’s on the top of your deck.

Generally speaking, you surveil in smaller quantities than you self-mill. Further, your graveyard is going to be accessible if you’re self-milling.

Lazav, the MultifariousLazav, the Multifarious is nice to have in a deck that involves self-mill, self-discard, or anything similar. But surveilling as a whole isn’t really required.

Your graveyard really is just a second hand at this point.

What About Them?

Up until now, this article was focused on self-mill, self-discard, and similar attributes. The reason is simply because mill on a three-way split with 100-card decks isn’t as feasible as other formats.

However, that isn’t to say you are unable to implement it.

There are really two specific flavors of targeted milling when it comes to Commander. You can either focus on milling one person at a time. Or you can focus on milling everyone at once.

One Person

While not the fastest method of winning, focusing your mill on a single player at a time gives you the ability to negotiate who you’ll mill and when. You aren’t making enemies by accidentally ruining the plan of the person next to you.

Just be aware, this means you’re vulnerable to “one-and-done” syndrome. That being, where you make an alliance with one player, you each take out a target, and then you’re in a one-on-one.

Given that in order to properly mill a 100-card deck you likely spent most of your resources, you might not be able to mill your former partner fast enough. Particularly given how late in the game this confrontation would take place.

Just don’t focus all your mill on a single player and you’ll be fine. Always have a contingency.

A selection of cards to ensure one specific player has a bad time.

Everyone

Certainly the more expressive option of the two options, this very might paint a target on your back. You might not be the largest threat, but you’re quite the large and painful thorn in the side of everyone.

That being said, there’s a few ways to go about this.

The most straightforward is to play cards that mill everyone. Or if you’re feeling protective of your own library, cards that mill everyone else.

This won’t tend to win you games on their own, but multiple of them add up over time. Particularly when paired with a more targeted approach.

None of these are subtle, though they certainly are effective.

Further, there are cards that scale off of milling or otherwise have some sort of synergy with it. Use these to supplement your main sources of milling.

Don’t pivot away from your core strategy, but make sure you can support yourself while working through it.

Not every card that mills is about the sheer volume.

You can put the pressure on the pod, decreasing hand sizes across the board in order to make every decision count. Afterall, you can make a deck that thrives off of your hand size being slashed in half. Why can’t they?

This is certainly the most direct of the various methods.

Just Exile Them

Sometimes you don’t want to mill your opponents, you want to remove them from existence. Their cards, not the opponent's. Though when I go up against an Eldrazi deck, I certainly would prefer if my opponent ceased to exist.

Which is why it’s so fitting that the Ingest keyword is typical to Eldrazi Drones. Exiling the top card of your opponent’s deck when you deal damage to them isn’t a lot. But anything that copies creatures or can transfer Ingest?

Or even just using Crumbling SanctuaryCrumbling Sanctuary with otherwise normal beatdown strategies? That’s how you remove a library from existence.

Pair it with the aforementioned milling strategies and even a Golgari player can’t turn it to their advantage. Blue players will help you along with all their card draw. White’s ability to exile and gain life doesn’t help when you’re playing off the battlefield.

Even red players will get hesitant to impulse draw if you’re slashing their deck.

While they can exile the top card of their deck and play it that turn, should they? When they’re just speeding their time to deck-out?

If this specific strain of milling appeals to you, check out this article all about exiling-as-milling, plus a listing of some of the most notorious milling cards out there.

If you see these, I hope you aren’t too attached to your library.

Why Mill?

To mill in Commander is to show up to a game with chaos in your heart and an underdog mentality. You are purposely putting yourself at a disadvantage in order to make a more interesting game dynamic.

I respect that. I’ll curse your name and MurderMurder any Ruin CrabRuin Crab on sight, but it’s certainly a respectable way to play! Particularly in the case where targeted milling is used as a force of negotiation.

The ability to promise “not” to do something is just as powerful as anything a Group Hug can provide. It’s much like countering in that respect, but that’s for another article.

Remember to always mill responsibly!

Sikora

Sikora's a writer, game developer, and game master for TTRPGs with a love of storytelling. Generic as that might be for someone writing articles about Magic: the Gathering, they make sure to put their passion behind their words and can talk ad nauseum. Truly, letting them write articles was a mistake.