There have been a handful of interesting takes on Modern mill in the last couple years, most featuring cards like Mesmeric Orb, Surgical Extraction, and Shelldock Isle to try to mill your opponent out as quickly as possible. However, that doesn’t mean there some variants that can play a more normal gameplan, rather than going all-in on racing your opponent. This week, nanikuzu has a really interesting take on Mill that looks something like a Death's Shadow deck:

Esper Mill - Modern | nanikuzu

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Phantasmal Image
• 2 Ranger of Eos
• 4 Hedron Crab
• 4 Jace's Phantasm
• 4 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Jace Beleren
• 3 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver

• Instants (14)
• 2 Stubborn Denial
• 2 Thought Scour
• 2 Twincast
• 4 Archive Trap
• 4 Visions of Beyond

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Mind Funeral

• Lands (22)
• 1 Swamp
• 3 Island
• 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 3 Watery Grave
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Polluted Delta

Buy This Deck

Depending on what exactly it is your opponent is trying to do, you have some flexibility in how you want to approach the matchup. Is your opponent playing an aggressive deck? You can try to use Jace's Phantasm and Snapcaster Mage to gum up the ground while you find a critical mass of mill or a Ranger of Eos to help turn the corner. Does it look like you’re playing against combo? You can aggressively use your mill spells to try to hit their combo pieces and then follow up with a cast courtesy of Jace's Phantasm. What about control or midrange decks? You can sit back and use your Visions of Beyond to bury your opponents in cards, particularly in conjunction with Snapcaster Mage.

If you’re looking for a way to mill your opponents out in Modern without going all-in on Archive Trap and Glimpse the Unthinkable, this seems like an incredibly reasonable middle-of-the-road approach to the archetype. You have enough fast mill to turn on your payoff spells early, but not so much that you can’t play a more traditional midrange gameplan when the matchup calls for it.