The Best MTG Mill Commanders

Among the many different archetypes in MTG, Mill has always stood out as a bit of an oddball. Winning by putting your opponent’s whole deck into the graveyard is simultaneously more psychologically salt-inducing, and much, much harder, than just winning through damage. These both go double in Commander, too, where there’s more of a focus on fun and 300 cards to get through rather than 60.

That said, Mill is still very much a viable deck type in Commander, which can often catch pods out due to its relative rarity. If you want to get in on the action yourself, then these are our picks for the best Mill Commanders in all of MTG.

Honorable Mention | Captain N’ghathrod

Captain N’ghathrod is doubly niche, representing both the Mill archetype and Horror Typal in one curious Commander. Interestingly, the two overlap a lot, with notable Horrors like Consuming Aberration and Zellix, Sanity Flayer also being great Mill cards. Even with more standard Horrors, like Uchuulon, adding mill to damage dealt will whittle those decks down fast.

While you’ll get faster mill elsewhere, N’ghathrod’s reanimation ability gives this Commander a powerful edge. This works with any kind of mill, not just that from N’ghathrod itself, so cards like Altar of DementiaAltar of DementiaSacrifice a creature: Target player mills cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power. and Ruin CrabRuin CrabLandfall — Whenever a land you control enters, each opponent mills three cards. (To mill a card, a player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.) can massively open up your options. Bagging free creatures is great, especially against chunky decks like ramp, but the artifact option usually means you’ll get at least a mana rock each turn.

Though Captain N’ghathrod is definitely powerful, its split focus between Horrors and Mill makes it a bit less consistent than many of its peers. For this reason, it’s only an honorable mention here, but it’s still a fantastic choice for a Mill Commander if you don’t want to go all-in.

5 | Bruvac the Grandiloquent

Sometimes the simplest Commanders are the most effective, and that’s definitely true of Bruvac the Grandiloquent. For three mana, this is a 1/4 that doubles all of your mill: no more, no less. This makes achieving a total mill victory literally twice as easy, making grindy pieces like Ruin CrabRuin CrabLandfall — Whenever a land you control enters, each opponent mills three cards. (To mill a card, a player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.) and Psychic Corrosion much harder to ignore.

Things get even better when you add in other mill-boosting effects, like The Water Crystal and Fraying Sanity, for big bursts of mill. Heck, with cards that mill half of an opponent’s deck at once, like Maddening Cacophony and Traumatize, Bruvac essentially lets you take players out in one turn. Having a combo piece in the command zone is always excellent, as cEDH players will attest, and Bruvac gives you exactly that in the right build.

Bruvac is also notable for being the best possible Commander for a Persistent Petitioners Mill deck, being an Advisor itself and letting you mill 24 cards at a time. This gives it a funky edge that balances out its seeming simplicity, making it one of the best Mill Commanders in MTG overall.

4 | The Mindskinner

Mill decks don’t typically care about damage at all, but The Mindskinner flips that idea on its head by delivering mass mill based on your damage. This sounds unintuitive for a Mono-Blue Commander at first, but The Mindskinner itself is a 10/1 with unblockable, which immediately makes a Voltron playstyle possible. Add in some protection like Mithril Coat, and Equipment like Genji GloveGenji GloveEquipped creature has double strike.
Whenever equipped creature attacks, if it's the first combat phase of the turn, untap it. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.
Equip {3}, and your Commander can do a ton of milling itself here.

To support The Mindskinner, you can tap into a surprisingly deep pool of colorless damage options to stack up a ton of mill each turn. Cards like Giggling Skitterspike and Stuffy Doll are great picks here, since they help hold down the fort as well. You can also run evasive creatures like Silent Hallcreeper, and evasion granters like Wonder, to sneak through your other troops for extra mill.

Though it looks linear at first, there are actually lots of ways to build The Mindskinner as a Mill deck. You can go full Voltron, you can copy it with legendary rule-dodging CloneCloneYou may have this creature enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.s like Spark Double, or you can go down the damage route. Whichever path you take, this is a powerful and terrifying Mill Commander that can easily win games.

3 | Hope Estheim

Hope Estheim is one of the newest Mill Commanders in MTG, but it’s also one of the best. Tying mill to lifegain actually makes a ton of sense, since milling the table out can take a while, so the extra life cushion helps you get there. This also opens up a ton of new avenues for mill, letting cards like Soul WardenSoul WardenWhenever another creature enters, you gain 1 life. and The Wind Crystal function as powerful grindy mill engines over time.

Hope Estheim is also notable for turning any infinite lifegain combo into an instant win, serving as a two-mana combo piece out of the command zone. You can pop off with Famished Paladin and Resplendent Mentor, for instance, or with Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset and Peregrine Dynamo.

Throw in some classic Mill pieces, and some cross-synergistic cards like Space-Time Anomaly, and Hope Estheim is a real force to be reckoned with. The fact that it costs just two mana is well worth noting, too, since it makes it easy to get going early and easy to recover later after removal.

2 | Phenax, God of Deception

Released as part of Magic’s original God cycle back in Born of the Gods, Phenax, God of Deception remains a Mill powerhouse to this day. Tapping your creatures to mill is a huge ability, especially when paired with massive creatures like The Walls of Ba Sing Se and Charix, the Raging Isle. Graveyard scaling creatures, like Consuming Aberration and Cruel Somnophage, work beautifully here too.

Tapping down creatures like these is great for rushing a mill win, but this ability also offers surprising utility. You can use it to tap down creatures like King Macar, the Gold-Cursed or Cynical Loner, for example, to get maximum value without risking them in combat.

Phenax also enables a range of combo lines, some deterministic and some not so much. With Maddening Cacophony, and a graveyard scaler like Sewer NemesisSewer NemesisAs this creature enters, choose a player.
Sewer Nemesis's power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in the chosen player's graveyard.
Whenever the chosen player casts a spell, that player mills a card., Phenax lets you deck a player out completely with a single tap. It can also go pseudo-infinite with Eater of the dead, or Zellix, Sanity Flayer and Intruder Alarm, though you need to get lucky and hit creatures in every mill batch.

Add in Phenax’s innate Indestructibility, which makes it a nightmare to deal with even today, and it’s a stellar all-round package. You don’t hear that about a Commander from 2014 very often, but we’re happy to report that Phenax can still mill it up with the best of them.

1 | The Wise Mothman

As the 15th most popular Commander in the entire format, by EDHREC numbers, The Wise Mothman certainly gets around. While there are a few different ways to build this irradiated Insect, however, the Mill plan is a clear standout.

This is partly because Mothman offers easy rad counter generation, which improves when paired with Proliferate cards like Thrummingbird. Other generators, like Nuclear Fallout and Glowing One support this plan as well, leading to potentially massive mill numbers each turn.

What really pushes The Wise Mothman over the edge, however, is the payoff provided by that second ability. This triggers off of all mill, not just rad counter-related mill, so all the usual mill staples like Mesmeric Orb can buff your board up, too. This is great for enabling triggers on creatures like Benthic Biomancer, and even some infinite combos with setups like Herd Baloth, Moss-Pit Skeleton, and Altar of DementiaAltar of DementiaSacrifice a creature: Target player mills cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power..

With so much power and versatility, not to mention a stellar color identity, The Wise Mothman is a deep Commander that offers plenty of options. Given this, it’s not surprising that it’s also the best of the current Mill Commanders in MTG, by a fairly significant margin.

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