So you want to get into Modern? Great! It’s a fun format (most of the time, anyway). But I don’t have to tell you it’s expensive to get into, what with fetchlands and… *waves hands at everything*.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t jump into the format on a budget. Sleeving up Lightning Bolts has been a solid strategy since…
What?
You don’t want to play Burn?
Oh, come on, it’s … not terrible for your local environment? It’s a perfectly cromulent… oh I can’t even keep a straight face, Burn hasn’t been a relevant deck in God knows how long.
So you want to jump into Modern on a budget, play something competitive, and not deal with Lightning Bolts?
If you like different win cons, then yeah, I might have something for you - Dimir Mill!
One reason to consider the deck is that these tightly tuned versions have game against Breach decks. Serious game. Most versions of the deck are currently running a full four Surgical Extractions main, with extra Extirpates (Extrapates?) in the sideboard, giving the Mill pilot a solid opportunity to wipe out all copies of Underworld Breach on turn one or two. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter will also churn through a Breach deck like the proverbial hot knife through butter.
Running a playset of Extractions main also gives you a chance to hit engine cards in other decks as early as turn one via Archive Trap; Primeval Titan, for example, looking at you.
Mill’s weaknesses, however, is to decks that aren’t as focused on a singular strategy or creature (Boros Energy for example), or decks that depend on their graveyard as a strategy; although the popular BW Ketramose decks running maindeck Relic of Progenitus are forcing those decks out of the format (pour one out for Living End).
Also, be aware when Mill is on people’s radar, you’ll see other players slipping a copy of the O.G. Zendikar titans into their sideboard to foil the mill strategy; you’re only hope there is to hit one with Tasha’s (which is why you almost never sideboard them out).
And, given that by the time you read this Underworld Breach might have been hit with the banhammer, you might be seeing a lot of Boros Energy decks at the upper tables again.
If you’re looking for something a little different to play, capable of surprising people, and not that expensive by Modern standards, then do give Dimir Mill a spin.
Dave Meddish has been playing Magic longer than most of you have been alive and has the cards to prove it. Among other things, he's been a computer game designer, game show winner, and has written for Star City Games and Wizards of the Coast.