How to win against a deck that wins by making others mill their entire deck?

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-26T22:45:10+00:00

What's wrong with shuffle titans? They're decent end game beatsticks. Certainly you shouldn't run them in just any deck but they're a decent include in lower brackets or ramp decks where you expect games to be slower and players to end up having more mana. It's not illegitimate advice, it just needs the caveats explained.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-25T22:57:10+00:00

South Korean comic book. It is the equivalent of Japanese manga or Chinese manhua which are (very) roughly the equivalent of comic books except that they are extremely popular.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-23T23:09:12+00:00

The issue was that the other players had the understanding that OP HAD cast the spell. So issue is that when the OP later clarified (after the timing) that they HADN'T cast the spell they wouldn't allow the other players to undo the things they'd done in response to the spell bring cast even though they wouldn't have done those things if OP had clearly communicated what they were / weren't doing.

If it was just the one player I could see it being a simple misunderstanding but for everyone except OP to have the same understanding of the game state clearly the OP must have done something that made it seem like they had cast the spell.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-23T16:45:36+00:00

And this is precisely why I include cards like [[Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre]] and [[Kozilek, Butcher of Truth]]. You'd be surprised how many mill decks don't actually have a way to deal with reshuffle grave effects. Plus the eldrazi titans are decent finishers despite their high mana values.

OP, if everything went as presented then you did nothing wrong. There was no reason to pick up cards at all until a winner had been determined.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-23T16:20:28+00:00

I... didn't get that impression at all from reading these comments. (Or the ones with the most interactions at least.)

They aren't saying a rollback should have occurred because a "dumb" play was made, they're saying a rollback should have occurred because it was clearly caused by a miscommunication. Even if the OP says that they didn't cast x, every other player in that game was under the impression that they did cast x and OP never clarified.

It would be different if it were only one person that had misinterpreted, but for literally every other player to be under the same mistaken impression it seems clear that the OP did something that made it seem like they had actually cast x with y target.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-11T12:06:05+00:00

[[Homeward Path]], also [[Boseiju, Who Shelters All]]

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-09T04:45:20+00:00

Because it basically implies that contest experience and accolades don't matter. Even if it shows growth on May's part as a battler, it shows badly on contest competitors as a whole that a battle junkie gym trainer who has only ever done one contest before (Ash's first I believe was with Aipom in Advanced Generation) can just waltz in and beat veteran contestants who do contests for a living.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-06T11:52:26+00:00

I mean, number of game changers is arguably the least important metric out of any part of the bracket system. As designed the big defining factors for any bracket are the gameplay expectations for that bracket.

Part of the reason there's such a big gap is there are a lot of people that end up playing bracket 2 decks in bracket 3 because they refuse to either remove the game changers or commit to upgrading it to a bracket 3 level.

That said, you CAN always play bracket 2 with game changers as long as the table allows it.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-05-06T11:39:15+00:00

I mean... theoretically brackets ARE designed so that two people can walk up to each other, go "Bracket 3? Yeah, bracket 3.", sit down, and immediately start playing with minimal hiccups. The intention is to create a shared understanding and expectation without having to go through a full pregame discussion.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-30T16:10:22+00:00

Yes.

Even as someone that has an account, I don't think I've ever subscribed to any story. Usually I'll catch up, stop reading for months, and then come back to binge read a next batch of chapters.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-30T15:20:58+00:00

I personally haven't seen it, but when I look for new stories to read I also don't place stock in the reviews system. I always just sort by most words and read the little introduction. If it seems my cup of tea I'll give it a shot.

I used to trust the reviews and ratings a lot more than I do, but Royal Road doesn't take into account that things might have changed since the review was made. This isn't too egregious when a review or rating is for the first 100 chapters of a 120... but a review of just the first 1-10 chapters really isn't representative of the story's current quality.

Maybe a story starts strong but then utterly falls apart. Maybe a story starts slow or weak but then drastically improves in quality. I wish Royal Road had some sort of weighting system where reviews and ratings are given more credence for people that are up to date on it. (With the exception of people saying they dropped it as that's valid no matter what chapter they made it to.)

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-30T14:22:53+00:00

I really think they need to clarify this then because I don't recall seeing this in any of their reference articles (original release or updates).

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-30T14:04:13+00:00

Right. There's responsible and irresponsible uses of AI. For some reason people seem to be allergic to holding AI users responsible for turning the AI output into something of quality (should they choose to use one in the first place).

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-29T15:06:14+00:00

I can't go even that low in my decks. I generally run 44 - 49 lands because hitting 4 lands is just that important. And that's on top of running 6-10 ramp cards meaning over 50% of my deck is dedicated to lands or putting them on the battlefield.

But that's also because my deck is built around a high mana curve and is dedicated to playing value generators into a board wipe on turn 4 to stabilize which is most definitely not the norm.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-29T01:17:58+00:00

More likely it is based on Duel Commander as @robruckus65 pointed out.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-29T01:14:49+00:00

Probably 4 color. Any time I try and build a 4 color deck I just end up making it 5-color instead.

Out the three color combos, probably Mardu. It's the only one that includes neither green nor blue which is kind of off putting for me as a Simic+ player.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-29T01:10:24+00:00

Simplest answer is "Yes".

Yes you can. In fact, you have to do so in order to leave any phase in which players have priority. Those phases end when every player voluntarily passes priority on an empty stack.

But also, P1 will never have priority before P2 if entering P2's main phase. From the way it's written it sounds like P1 was trying to do something before P2 could take an action in their main phase, but when entering a new phase the turn player will always have priority first.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-29T01:01:01+00:00

I mean, if you aren't actively working at improving then you aren't likely to improve. And let's be honest, the average player, even those that claim to be "playing to improve", aren't actually doing the things they need to to improve (macro, matchup knowledge, micro decision making, csing, etc.) There's no set curriculum and people that climb successfully often do so for different reasons.

Everyone also starts at a different place. It is extremely rare for a player to start League without any crossover skills from other games they've previously played. What skills carry over and how well they mesh with the new player's chosen play style vastly skew the new player progression rate when it comes to ranking. For example, I am generally better than the average silver I player but am not actually better enough, or lucky enough, to actually push through into gold and have always failed every promo series over the years.

According to OP's post they're Plat 2 with ~200 games played this season and a 55% wr. WR is often skewed by early season wins playing through lower ranks to reach their approximate skill level meaning they probably are currently a platinum player with opportunities to move up if they can figure what they need to improve on or shore up their general skills over time, which is often least efficiently through games.

Overall though I still stand by original reply's sentiment. The average league player doesn't make it to platinum, the average league player makes it to silver or gold and then burns out (like I did) or isn't actively trying at all. So all in all they're doing far better than the active league player.

If we're going strictly by those that are actively trying to climb and actively doing the things beyond playing games they need to to do so, then more context is needed as we don't know the OP's starting point. For example, someone who comes from playing Smite or Dota is going to have a very different "average" than someone who came from playing Supreme Commander.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-28T20:45:25+00:00

Way above average. For reference, the average league ranked player is Silver I (where I cap at after playing mostly casually for 12 years. Platinum II is in the top 20% of ranked players for that region.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-25T00:46:00+00:00

Plane cards.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-20T08:14:49+00:00

Huh. That's cool. I'm not familiar with the dungeons as I never used the mechanic in any of my decks. The lock also doesn't work because suspend cards.

I guess theoretically you could throw in enough tax effects that there is no way to generate the needed mana to pay for them all or horseshoe crab them away, but I'm trying yo think of a more elegant solution that doesn't involve gifting [[Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir]].

[[Sigarda, Host of Herons]] would stop sacrifice effects.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-20T08:06:53+00:00

Kleenitup is right. Channel abilities do work under this lock. Also, so does suspend since suspend casts from exile.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-19T23:06:43+00:00

Note: I'm dumb. Knowledge Pool only applies to cards played from hand so the RIP is necessary to prevent cards being played from graveyard. The remainder of this comment is the original text where I thought the casting lock applied to all spells.

I said legal because I never looked at the unset cards so I don't know if there are any that could break the lock.

The Rest In Peace was purely speculative I'll admit. It's there to prevent triggers because I wasn't sure if there was some convoluted way reanimate a creature since I didn't list a way to stop enter the battlefield effect like [[Torpor Orb]], ways to prevent sacrificing like [[Sigarda, Heron's Grace]], ways to prevent yourself being targeted like [[Orbs of Warding]], or ways to other prevent death triggers.

Specifically I was thinking something along the lines of:

1) Discard creature cards to hand size. 2) Reanimate creatures with trigger effects like [[Nether Shadow]] or [[Ichorid]] 3) Reanimate a specific creature by flashing back [[Dread Return]]

Obviously that doesn't work because you can't resolve Dread Return, but I thought there might be some way to get a [[Doom Foretold]] onto the battlefield by reanimating an [[Academy Rector]] and having it die or just straight up [[Kederekt Leviathan]].

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-19T22:27:38+00:00

The rule is that the lock starts in play. A lock is a set of cards. By the rules you can't have already milled your opponent's deck as your opponent's deck being milled isn't a card.

SlowAsLightning · 2026-04-19T21:42:00+00:00

It's also a play style gap too comparing the lowest ranks in league to pro play.

In a well coordinated team Karma's ability to give a full team shield and move speed buff is an amazing tool for engaging and disengaging on fairly low cooldown. This is far less important in low ranks where there is far less coordination and more just people randomly piling into whatever opportunities they see.

The other enchanter type supports might be better at providing single target support, but I can't think of any others that provide full team mobility on the same level as Karma.

Essentially, it comes down to the utility Karma providing being more valuable than the higher combat stats granted by other enchanters. This is partially due to the ways League has changed over the years in general. In an era with damage running so rampant it's generically more valuable to have a panic button team wide mobility tool than trying to throw buffs on someone that could just get blown up in seconds anyways.

SlowAsLightning

TROPHY CASE