So, This one is a Blue deck. It doesn’t always win, but the gamble is part of the fun. It is an Innistrad block self-mill deck. Kind of like performing a lobotomy on yourself more than a strategy. You really have to go against your natural instincts for self-preservation with this one. The idea behind this deck makes the Hellbent ability look like sunday school. Your not just emptying your hand and hoping you don’t fall from the tightrope here (like Hellbent does at adrenaline pace), you don’t get the safety net of maybe drawing a good card here and having a huge library waiting for you with a promise of victory. With this deck your closing your eyes and jumping off of a cliff you didn’t even look over first.

Your biggest concern with this deck will be Surgical extraction. Surgical extraction can hit you from the beginning to the end and will decimate this deck. This deck only has one win condition and it is in the four copies of Laboratory Maniac, which means it only takes one surgical extraction (that can be played for two life if their mana is tapped out) and they are probably running four copies of the DAMNED card.

Lands:

  • Island x 20

Creatures:

  • Screeching Skaab x 4
  • *Laboratory Maniac x 4
  • Geralf’s Mindcrusher x 3
  • Deranged Assistant x 4
  • Armored Skaab x 4
  • Rotcrown Ghoul x 4
  • **Mirror-Mad Phantasm x 1

Spells:

  • Thought Scour x 4
  • Chill of Foreboding x 4
  • Forbidden Alchemy x 4
  • Ghoulcaller’s Bell x 4

Sideboard (Creatures):

  • Mindshrieker x 3

Sideboard (Spells):

  • Dream Twist x 4
  • Curse of The Bloody Tome x 4
  • Dreadwaters x 4

#End of Deck list# 

* = Win condition card

** = Star player, using more than one will lessen it’s effect as it stops at the first one it comes across.

The Skaabs play defense and mill you a bit closer to your goal. The assistant provides mana acceleration with a steady mill effect. The Mirror-Mad can rush for the goal if your win condition is in place. The Laboratory maniac rewards your suicidal charge with a win once your library has imploded.

The spells let you sift through your library with cards like Forbidden Alchemy, to get your win condition while tossing all else to the side. Other spells let you mill yourself and your opponent at the same time in hopes of disrupting his/her plans while also hopefully dumping their surgical extractions into the graveyard (it only takes one to spoil your fun). The mill comes a bit slow at the cost of keeping the deck within one block. This keeps it interesting though.

The sideboard critter is for blocking flyers and providing a steady mill if you have the land left over. Do not let this one tie up your land for its ability though as you need to cast your way to oblivion. The sideboard spells help you concentrate more on mill and less on defense. The rush with this deck is in seeing if you can defeat yourself with a winning lose condition. If you don’t get a laboratory maniac out before you’ve milled away your hopes and dreams then you are in for a loss that you can’t blame on anyone else.  That is why I have named this deck “Self Defeat Blues”.

Another card that may have been overlooked. Increasing confusion. It costs 1&x, is at sorcery speed and has a flashback of 1&x. X translates to straight up mill. Dreadwaters is generally a better card at 1(blue) 3 colorless, and you mill equal too lands you have, while still keeping those remaining lands open for more spells. Increasing Confusion’s flashback is tempting however as it lets you make up for past mistakes a.k.a. if you mill it by accident you can always flashback it for the same cost and double the effect, making for a very powerful play. Also, you can play Increasing Confusion on the second and third turns and get some extra oomph out of/from your deranged assistants when those are in play (you don’t get to count them as land for your Dreadwaters). If you are going to go above 20 lands then consider cycling (best option) or land-cycling lands (if you are so set on getting a land) too further mill your deck; however this kills the block purity.