The 33 Best Mill Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 27, 2024

Phenax, God of Deception | Illustration by Ryan Barger

Picture a game of Magic: The Gathering that you just won. Your deck did exactly what it was supposed to do, and you came out on top. In that scenario, you probably imagined an opponent with 0 life, and you with some attacking creatures. After all, that’s how you win in Magic – right?

You might already know that there’s another way (outside of alternate win-condition cards) to win a game of Magic: when your opponent must draw a card with an empty library. Most of the time, this is an afterthought. For some, it’s the dream.

If you’re a blue mage who thinks the combat phase is overrated, mill might be the strategy for you.

What Is Mill in MTG?

Millstone | Illustration by Yeong Hao Han

Mill cards in MTG are spells or abilities that remove cards from your opponents’ deck with the goal of eventually forcing them to lose the game by drawing from an empty library. The actual definition of what it means to “mill a card” is to put the top card of your library into your graveyard. A mill deck uses a strategy that depends on emptying its opponent’s library, rather than reducing their life total.

This ranking focuses on cards that mill your opponents, rather than milling yourself. Self-mill, in most cases, is actually more powerful than milling your opponents. Either way, those decks are very different from the traditional mill archetype, so I won’t be talking about those cards.

#33. Fleet Swallower + Terisian Mindbreaker

Most of the cards that mill half of an opponent’s library are primarily useful alongside Bruvac the Grandiloquent who turns these triggered abilities into what’s effectively “destroy target player.” That’s the primary place that Fleet Swallower and Terisian Mindbreaker will find use. Otherwise, they’re very underwhelming expensive creatures.

#32. Sphinx’s Tutelage

Sphinx's Tutelage is pretty low-impact in Commander. But there’s always a chance that it puts in more work than you’d expect, especially against mono-colored decks with a low curve. 

#31. Teferi’s Tutelage

Similar to Sphinx's Tutelage except it has the loot effect on entering rather than for 6 mana. Still overall a weaker Psychic Corrosion for multiplayer formats, which isn’t especially powerful itself, so unless you’re all-in on drawing cards, I’d rather look elsewhere.

#30. Hedron Crab

A classic staple of Modern mill strategies, Hedron Crab turns every land drop into some milled cards. You want to hit your land drops anyway, so a cheap blocker that generates effectively free value is very welcome in a strategy that needs to churn through 60 cards rather than 20 life points. Unfortunately, it only mills one opponent at a time, making this an inefficient choice for Commander mill decks. But it’s a classic that has some solid synergies regardless, so I wouldn’t blame you for including it anyway.

#29. Traumatize

Traumatize definitely mills a lot of cards when you cast it, but you’ll want to save this blue sorcery for when you can pair it with Bruvac the Grandiloquent to completely eliminate a player or bring them within a card of devastation.

#28. Cut Your Losses

Much like Traumatize, this is a sorcery you’ll want to save until you’re able to resolve it with Bruvac the Grandiloquent. The casualty ability is nice, but ultimately cards like this are too expensive for how little they accomplish when not used as a combo piece.

#27. Deepmuck Desperado

If your mill deck is especially interactive, which many tend to be, Deepmuck Desperado makes a solid inclusion. Committing a crime means targeting an opponent, a permanent/spell they control, or a card in their graveyard. So that means triggering your Hedron Crab also triggers this homarid mercenary, as would targeting them with something like Glimpse the Unthinkable. This can lead to plenty of extra mill over the course of a long game, especially in Commander, where this adds each-opponent mill to any instances of single-target mill.

#26. Persistent Petitioners

If there’s one thing that Persistent Petitioners excels at, it’s consistency. Unfortunately, unless paired up with (say it with me now!) Bruvac the Grandiloquent, using 8 mana worth of creatures to make one player mill 12 cards per turn is just inefficient.

#25. Ashiok, Dream Render

Three mana seems to be the sweet spot for a powerful planeswalker. Ashiok, Dream Render doesn’t hit the board and turn the tide of battle necessarily, but there’s plenty of space in a mill deck for a role player like this. Not only does it shut off fetch lands and tutors from your opponents, it also exiles their graveyards every time you activate it. One of mill's weaknesses is that you might enable your opponents' powerful graveyard strategies, so Ashiok, Dream Render alleviates that concern.

#24. Glimpse the Unthinkable

Glimpse the Unthinkable is one of the most iconic mill cards in Magic’s history. Two mana, 10 milled cards – simple, clean, effective. Sure, it might be past its time in the spotlight, but it’s still a Dimir card () that can get some dirty work done for a mill deck.

#23. Psychic Corrosion

Psychic Corrosion mills plenty of cards over the course of a game, I can’t deny that. Unfortunately, this blue enchantment costs 3 mana, generates no value, and puts in similar amounts of work to 1-mana and 2-mana mill permanents. That isn’t to say this is a bad effect for mill decks – it’d find its best home in mono-blue ones that make drawing cards a priority.

#22. Memory Erosion

Playing a similar role to Psychic Corrosion, Memory Erosion instead only requires your opponents to cast spells. That’s not exactly a rare occurrence. This enchantment probably won’t be the deciding factor, especially with a 3-mana price tag, but it’ll do a lot of work in those long and grindy games.

#21. Phenax, God of Deception

Phenax, God of Deception rewards high toughness creatures with a powerful mill ability. This goes best with creatures like Cruel Somnophage, Wight of Precinct Six, and Mortivore. These creatures get bigger as you use them to mill, which means they’ll mill more. If you want your mill strategy to result in powerful creatures, this legendary god might be the card to try building around.

#20. Fraying Sanity

There’s definitely a lot of 3-mana enchantments that play a support role in the mill strategy. That said, Fraying Sanity effectively doubles all your mill against one player at the table. If there’s a particular deck at the table that you expect to give you trouble, attach this curse to that opponent and accelerate their demise.

#19. Ruin Crab

A Zendikar Rising callback to original Zendikar’s classic mill crab, Ruin Crab makes a couple of key changes that bring up the power level. The first is an extra point of toughness – that's a big difference on a 1-drop, since Ruin Crab can effectively block creatures with 2 power. The other change is that it mills each opponent, so this blue creature’s a powerhouse in Commander mill strategies.

#18. Court of Cunning

In Commander, Court of Cunning has the potential to mill 30 total cards each turn if you can maintain the monarchy. In a deck that can keep some evasive creatures around alongside its mill plan, this has the potential to get a ton of work done.

#17. Drown in Dreams

Other than having an incredible name for a Magic card, Drown in Dreams is a very solid mill-flavored take on Sphinx's Revelation. Refill your hand and get some bonus mill if your Commander's on the table – I’d call that a solid enough deal.

#16. Zellix, Sanity Flayer

This blue legendary horror turns your opponents’ mill into value on your board. Pair Zellix, Sanity Flayer with strong mill engines, and you’ll accumulate more and more Horror tokens. Its strongest synergy is with Altar of the Brood. Cast Zellix, the Altar triggers, and then if any opponent mills a creature card, Zellix makes a Horror token and Altar triggers again. If any of your opponents mill a creature again, Zellix makes another Horror, and so on. 

#15. Captain N’ghathrod

Captain N'ghathrod was designed to helm a horror typal Commander deck. This legendary horror pirate wants you to mill your opponents during your turn, especially by hitting them with horror creatures, and reanimate a powerful threat that your opponents happened to mill. It’s 5 mana and requires you to get in with attacks, but once you start getting the big swings in, you’ll be cheating mana costs on your opponents’ most powerful artifacts and creatures.

#14. Anowon, the Ruin Thief

Anowon, the Ruin Thief is all about rogue typal. You’ll want to spread the damage around the table to draw more cards. This creature enables you to build your board state of evasive rogues, draw cards, and keep the mill flowing.

#13. Jace, the Perfected Mind

Jace, the Perfected Mind is one of my favorite mill planeswalkers. This blue planeswalker can come down for 4 mana and immediately mill 15 cards – not bad on its own. Spend some time building its loyalty (or pair it with a combo piece like Doomsday Excruciator) and it’ll be a powerful mill finisher in 60-card MTG formats like Standard and Pioneer.

#12. Fractured Sanity

This is just a plain flexible blue sorcery. In Commander, 3 mana for 42 milled cards makes Fractured Sanity nothing to scoff at. At just 2 mana to cycle alongside 12 milled cards, this is a solid deal no matter how you end up using it.

#11. Maddening Cacophony

Another card that seems designed to allow mill to keep up in the 4-player, 100-card world of Commander, Maddening Cacophony can get the majority of your opponents’ cards into the graveyard all by itself. Much like the other cards that make opponents mill half of their deck, Maddening Cacophony’s best application is with Bruvac the Grandiloquent, who turns this into a game-winning combo.

#10. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter

Are your Commander tables occupied by decks with low curves made up of cheap spells? Tasha's Hideous Laughter combats that style of deckbuilding by removing cards based on total mana value. In formats like Modern with smaller deck sizes and tons of cheap spells, this can exile tons of cards. It’s less effective in Commander but can still certainly shrink some libraries.

#9. Archive Trap

Another card that’s only really effective in smaller-deck formats like Modern or Draft, Archive Trap can make an opponent mill 13 cards for free if the opponent has searched their library. Modern’s abundance of fetch lands make this a remarkably common occurrence, making this spell free-to-cast at some point in the vast majority of games of Modern.

#8. The Mindskinner

This legendary nightmare from Duskmourn: House of Horror is an interesting twist on a mill card. When The Mindskinner connects, it’ll mill 30 total cards from a Commander table. Play more evasive creatures and deal more damage, mill more cards. In your command zone, this blue commander turns mill into a combat-based strategy. Even outside the command zone, it’ll mill more than enough cards to be worth including even if it’s the only creature on your side of the battlefield.

#7. Altar of the Brood

One card at a time makes Altar of the Brood read a little underwhelming if you’ve never experienced it. The decks that play this colorless card are equipped to exploit it, and that turns this into a powerful win condition. They might be stealing the cards put into graveyards with Captain N'ghathrod or taking advantage of the way it interacts with Zellix, Sanity Flayer, for example.

#6. Grinding Station

Grinding Station reminds me of Brain Freeze in that it can both enable powerful self-mill to find combo pieces and mill your opponents to get the job done. Those qualities make cards like these incredibly powerful engine elements for combo decks.

#5. Doomsday Excruciator

Six black pips of mana makes Doomsday Excruciator pretty difficult to cast sometimes. On the bright side, this black creature exiles all but six of each player’s cards – a perfect position for a mill finish. In Standard, players are casting this demon and then activating Jace, the Perfected Mind to finish the job.

#4. Mindcrank

In a format like Commander, where players are always gaining life and losing life for various reasons, Mindcrank sits on the board like a parasite, insidiously turning the regular moments of Commander gameplay into bonus mill. I think that the most powerful mill pieces are the ones that require minimal extra work from the mill player, and Mindcrank is a prime example. 

#3. Brain Freeze

This might be the most powerful mill finisher card of all time – it serves as both a self-mill enabler and an opponent-milling finisher in storm combo decks. When paired with Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond, it pays for its own escape cost as you repeatedly escape it and the Diamond, building the storm count until you have enough Brain Freeze copies on the stack to mill your opponents.

#2. Grindstone

It’s not the most Commander friendly mill artifact, but Grindstone is one part of a game-winning combo with Painter's Servant in Legacy. Make your opponent’s whole deck into a certain color, and then Grindstone mills them out. You can even find this artifact with Urza's Saga, if you weren’t terrified enough.

It’s an improved version of Millstone, the card that lent its name to “mill” as a keyword. Grindstone costs 1 less mana to play, 1 more to activate, but it has the potential to reactivate itself.

#1. Mesmeric Orb

Most of the powerful mill cards in Magic reward the mill player for enacting their game plan. Think Ruin Crab or Altar of the Brood: They’re powerful, but require the mill player to put some work in to make it happen. 

Now read Mesmeric Orb. Rather than rewarding you as the mill player, it punishes your opponents for taking their game actions. Playing lands, casting and tapping their creatures and artifacts, these are the bread and butter of Magic. If there’s a Mesmeric Orb on the table, your gameplan is accelerating as they take game actions, but it’s also scaling based on the players that are trying to win with their own gameplan. Even if you just turtle up and protect yourself, if this is on the table, your opponents will be milling more and more every single turn.

Best Mill Payoffs

You’ve made it this far, which means that you’re probably aware of the strongest mill payoff: Bruvac the Grandiloquent. It’s one thing that it brings a bit more substance to small and repeated mill effects like Ruin Crab. The real reason Bruvac is so powerful is that there’s an entire class of card, all of the variants on Traumatize, that makes an entire players deck go poof when resolved with Bruvac the Grandiloquent in play.

Another way for mill to pay off is to pair it with reanimation. Cast Rise of the Dark Realms while your opponents have most of their decks in the graveyard and you’ll likely win the game soon after. There’s also some big-mana effects like Virtue of Persistence and Portal to Phyrexia which steal creatures from graveyards every single turn.

Undead Alchemist converts milled creatures into your own creatures, which themselves can attack for more mill.

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is difficult to interact with and can become a copy of the most dangerous card that your opponents mill. The Master, Transcendent can also let you steal freshly-milled creatures.

Shadow Kin accomplishes some milling itself and avoids interaction with flash while also becoming a copy of a threat. It only lets you choose from among the cards milled with this creature in your upkeep, though.

Cruel Somnophage is a nice adventure creature that makes for a real threat by the end of the game. Duskmantle Guildmage can convert mill to life loss to end games quicker, and even produces an infinite combo with Mindcrank. Drown in the Loch is a removal/counterspell hybrid that only gets more powerful as your opponents' graveyards fill. Avatar of Woe becomes an incredibly cheap and effective threat after some milling gets done.

The Wise Mothman becomes a potent threat very quickly if you can keep the mill coming, too.

Is Mill Good in Commander?

If built and piloted well, mill can be a potent strategy in Commander. With a powerful mill commander like Bruvac the Grandiloquent at the helm and a high redundancy amongst some of the more potent mill threats, a Commander mill deck can undoubtedly hold its own.

There are, of course, weaknesses to a mill strategy – some players include cards that prevent themselves from losing to an empty library like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. Higher-power decks can also include Thassa's Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries for their own win-conditions, which incidentally means that milling an opponent out could mean that they win the game!

Graveyard-focused strategies are also popular in Commander, so milling those opponents can often simply enable them to take over the game. There are ways around this, though; graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt gives you an out to the graveyard shenanigans we’d otherwise enable.

Rule Zero

It’s worth noting that some Magic players aren’t fans of playing against mill decks. They don’t like to see all their favorite cards sent away never to be used, and they find the play patterns of mill decks unfun for their Commander tables. You don’t have to choose never to play mill for those players, but do be courteous during your Rule 0 conversation and let the table know that you’re playing a mill strategy before the game begins in case there are any concerns.

Is Mill the Same as Discard?

No, mill isn’t the same as discard. To mill a card, put the top card of your library into the graveyard. To discard a card, you choose a card in your hand and put it into your graveyard.

Can You Mill an Empty Library?

No, you can’t mill an empty library. Milling a card means putting the top card of your library into your graveyard – if there’s no card to put into the graveyard, no cards were milled.

Do You Lose if You Can’t Mill?

No, you don’t lose the game if you can’t mill. If your library is empty and an effect tells you to mill cards, you simply don’t mill. You’ll only lose the game if you attempt to draw from an empty library.

Can You Lose to Mill?

No, you can’t lose the game to mill. You only lose the game when you attempt to draw a card while your library is empty. If your opponent mills your entire deck, you usually have until your next draw step to solve that problem somehow, whether that means winning the game yourself or finding a way to put cards back into your library. 

When Did Mill Become a Keyword?

Mill became a keyword action in 2020 with the release of Core Set 2021. Before that, “mill” was a term that the community used for the effect, based on Millstone. Since M21, mill has become a keyword that appears all over Magic, especially on blue cards.

Wrap Up

Fraying Sanity | Illustration by Ryan Alexander Lee

Now you’re familiar with the most powerful mill cards in Magic, and most of the terrifying ways that Bruvac the Grandiloquent can ruin a player's life. Mill is a difficult strategy to pull off, as the odds are stacked against you from the beginning, so these cards and strategies will hopefully get you flipping your opponent’s decks upside down in no time.

Do you play mill in Commander? If so, do you like to explosively end the game with a Maddening Cacophony or chip the opponents down with Mindcrank and Mesmeric Orb? Maybe you prefer the Modern incarnations of mill and hold your Hedron Crabs and fetch lands very dearly?

Let us know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay grandiloquent!