One of the best Mill cards in the game. Wrecks mono colored decks just as well as multicolored (who commonly share colors with things like Hybrid cards). Even if you only mill 2, its not a complete loss. Also, autowin with Painter's Servant. Hence one of those two cards being banned in older formats.
Joseph_Leito
★☆☆☆☆ (1.8/5.0)(2 votes)
I went against a mono-black once. By fifth turn I decked him with this. I thought he was going to come across the table and tear the card up. XD
hiloster12
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Necropotence totally destroys this, course that made mostly for a mono black deck, go figure
TheLegendary
★☆☆☆☆ (1.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Scalpelexis has an even more brutal effect, but the high casting cost on that card, and the fact that it has to deal combat damage to work, places it a step below this gem.
Osmodius
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Does this card's effect even work on lands? Do Swamps share a color with black spells?
Sacrier
★★☆☆☆ (2.4/5.0)(7 votes)
no. lands do not have a color.
Locohead
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5.0)(7 votes)
Lands have no color. Even if you assume a mono-color weenie deck with 20 lands, without any other effects supporting it, these are the most likely scenarios:
average milled = 2.67 cards for 3 mana. Of course you can assume mana clumps so maybe it will be more like 3. 3 cards for 3 mana. Millstone = 2 cards for 2 mana. Same deal. Why on earth is this card $25? 3-turn kill combos like Painter's Servant -- OK, well then why is Painter's Servant $2? Availability?
I dunno, but I'm glad I sold my Grindstones for $25, and I would have happily traded them for things like Forces of Will or dual lands, LOL.
Xelopheris
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
In your average mono-colored 2:1 non-land:land ratio deck, assuming infinite cards remaining with the perfect ratio, your chance of getting 2 non-land cards is 44.4%.
Assuming you used some P9's and did this first turn, your chances of milling 10 cards are about 1%.
This doesn't take into account colorless cards skewing the ratio up.
nammertime
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(12 votes)
Painter's Servant gives your land CARDS a color, therefore, Grindstone + Painter's Servant = instant full-deck mill once you activate the Grindstone.
Gaussgoat
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Mono deck death... an amazing artifact, especially considering that it is a measly 1CC to brin into play. Devastating.
I want this card so bad! I love discard decks, but it costs like 30 bucks and if I did get it I would probably never even play with it because I wouldn't want to mess it up haha
Laguz
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Arguably the most cheap and boring card in the game and part of the most common 'kiddie combo' that is played by 14 year olds for the sole purpose of being annoying. They win with this in five seconds and act like they've actually accomplished something; you roll your eyes, walk away and wonder where all the adults are.
RafiqTheMiststalker
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(14 votes)
The art is DISGUSTING. Not in a crappy kind of way like Aven Trooper, but in a "tearing the scalp off of someone's head with a grindstone" kind of way. I can only as-sume the "dust" floating about is his powdered skull. My god, man :O
Silk_Blitz
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This, Painter's Servant and Channel for some spice and to make it happen a turn sooner. Hope they have Force of Will otherwise you're going to hope they pay for the hospital bill that comes with you getting punched in the face.
spectermonger
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
luckily pithing needle can be stuck in every SB
dragonking987
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I wonder what would happen if this+the painters servant combo crashed into the cards that get shuffled into there owners decks if discarded would it go on for ever because they would just keep on discarding?
Zoah
★☆☆☆☆ (1.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Sigh... Cheapest combo ever... This card had better cost five million dollars a piece or something.
transcend3nt
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
I feel that this painter's servant deck can be countered easily. Leyline of Sanctity, Extirpate, Cranial Extraction. Even normal discards cards would ruin it.
Superllama12
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
So many combos to break this card, the first that comes to mind is Painter's Servamt
ROBRAM89
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(4 votes)
If anybody can find some kind of chart of this card's price over time it will be great for a laugh or two.
BlackAlbino
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
One problem w/ the Painter's stone deck, the eldrazi titans stop it ( well actually keeps it going for all eternity ). And taking a deck and trying to board it into an entirely new archetype won't win you many games. And adding a leyline of the void, cranial extraction, etc just made that combo of yours ALOT clunkier and easier to disrupt. The best that could be done is to give yourself 8 vindicates/counterspells at 1 mana each. And even that won't win you the game without something significant to use as a threat.
@ scumbling1 Try as they might, and dont let this shock you, more than this deck uses force of will. And now there's mental misstep
asskicker123456789
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(4 votes)
Type your comment here.
non1337
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
If there are cards that would go back into the library, they will stay in graveyard until this effect finish resolving. Once their library is empty the effect ends, those cards would then shuffle back into the library.
zenitramleirdag
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
is that an onion ring on his eye? or is it an orange peel?..
LordRandomness
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The whole Painter's Servant thing is made worse because of the perfectly set up curve...
001010011100101110
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Cursed Scroll's milling brother. These two one-drop artifacts brothers went on to serve the Spikes and Johnnys of Magic for years to come.
EyeballFrog
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The weird thing about the Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo is its perfect mana curve.
It makes you wonder if they had it in mind when they made Painter's Servant.
DeaTh-ShiNoBi
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The obvious combo with Painter's Servant aside, this card really isn't as good as some people seem to think. Locohead has a point. Without Painter's Servant, let's assume that a 60 card deck has 24 lands and 36 cards of the same color. This is being optimistic as we're assuming that all 36 non-land cards both share a color, and are not artifacts of any sort (or other colorless cards).
Using Grindstone on a 60 card deck (let's ignore that they have to draw a hand and what not, it only complicates things), we get:
36/60 x 35/60 = .35,
35% chance for our Grindstone to activate a second time. To activate again, it has even less chance because we're taking out more colored cards without taking out the colorless cards:
.35 x 34/60 x 33/60 = .109083333....,
Not quite 11% chance for our Grindstone to activate a third time.
.109083333.... x 32/60 x 31/60 = .30058518...,
Roughly 3% chance for it to activate a 4th time. As you can see, it's not incredibly likely that Grindstone is going to give a big bomb mill.
This of course, gets less and less likely as the Grindstone continues to activate because colored cards are being taken out of the deck. It's fully impossible to mill someone with Grindstone in just a few turns (without other cards, such as Painter's Servant, helping it out), even if all of their lands are clumped at the bottom, so many of the comments here are boldly lying (I doubt any of them own a Grindstone).
Waven
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This card need to be banned. It's WAY too powerful with the Painter's Servant.
If you have Painter's Servant and they have Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in their library, then this will create an infinite loop. It will mill 2 and the trigger will go on the stack, and when Emrakul gets milled the yard will shuffle and you will keep on going, over and over. Unless you can Surgical Extraction or something.
Stuff like Worldspine Wurm and Darksteel Colossus is not as bad, the end result will be one card left, unless they had 2, then it would be an infinite loop with 2 cards left.
@ RafiqTheMiststalker: If you liked that, check out Sanity Gnawers.
blurrymadness
★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Respond to the stupid combo by Smothering the servant. (this goes on the stack, they smugly say "game", you kill the servant, and they.. mill 2-4 cards.)
If they named the color (black in my case) you can use pitch cards like Unmask and only pitch land or some such (as they're black at the time.) Unmasking and then smothering sounds like the best way to nail the combo if you failed to have appropriate discard in previous turns.
ereidivh
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@TheWrathOfShane
Actually, if you Painter's ServantGrindstone someone with an Eldrazi titan (or similar) in their library, this is what happens:
1) They put the top two cards of their library into their graveyard. 2) Grindstone's ability checks if those two cards share a color. They do, and we return to step 1. Between this, nobody gets priority, and therefore no triggered abilities (like the Eldrazis') are put on the stack. Effects that say "if so-and-so, repeat this process" do not re-activate / recast themselves. The spell simply keeps on resolving.
Thus, the end result will be that they put their entire library into their graveyard, then the ability that triggered when, for example, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth was put into its owner's graveyard will be put onto the stack, and that player will shuffle his or her graveyard into his or her library.
yes this is not a full list of ways to beat the combo but it makes my point you can survive if you know what you are going up against.
Combolover
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The thing that some people and I have been discussing on mtgsalvation is: If there is a Rest in Peace in play, does Grindstone mill the WHOLE library into exile? and if it does/does not how and why?
Comments (43)
Land, Card, **** (mill 2)
Card, Land, **** (mill 2)
Card, Card, Land (mill 4)
average milled = 2.67 cards for 3 mana. Of course you can assume mana clumps so maybe it will be more like 3. 3 cards for 3 mana. Millstone = 2 cards for 2 mana. Same deal. Why on earth is this card $25? 3-turn kill combos like Painter's Servant -- OK, well then why is Painter's Servant $2? Availability?
I dunno, but I'm glad I sold my Grindstones for $25, and I would have happily traded them for things like Forces of Will or dual lands, LOL.
Assuming you used some P9's and did this first turn, your chances of milling 10 cards are about 1%.
This doesn't take into account colorless cards skewing the ratio up.
5/5
Not in a crappy kind of way like Aven Trooper, but in a "tearing the scalp off of someone's head with a grindstone" kind of way.
I can only as-sume the "dust" floating about is his powdered skull.
My god, man :O
The best that could be done is to give yourself 8 vindicates/counterspells at 1 mana each. And even that won't win you the game without something significant to use as a threat.
@ scumbling1
Try as they might, and dont let this shock you, more than this deck uses force of will. And now there's mental misstep
Turn 1 - Grindstone
Turn 2 - Painter's Servant
Turn 3 - Activate Grindstone
It makes you wonder if they had it in mind when they made Painter's Servant.
Using Grindstone on a 60 card deck (let's ignore that they have to draw a hand and what not, it only complicates things), we get:
36/60 x 35/60 = .35,
35% chance for our Grindstone to activate a second time. To activate again, it has even less chance because we're taking out more colored cards without taking out the colorless cards:
.35 x 34/60 x 33/60 = .109083333....,
Not quite 11% chance for our Grindstone to activate a third time.
.109083333.... x 32/60 x 31/60 = .30058518...,
Roughly 3% chance for it to activate a 4th time. As you can see, it's not incredibly likely that Grindstone is going to give a big bomb mill.
This of course, gets less and less likely as the Grindstone continues to activate because colored cards are being taken out of the deck. It's fully impossible to mill someone with Grindstone in just a few turns (without other cards, such as Painter's Servant, helping it out), even if all of their lands are clumped at the bottom, so many of the comments here are boldly lying (I doubt any of them own a Grindstone).
Stuff like Worldspine Wurm and Darksteel Colossus is not as bad, the end result will be one card left, unless they had 2, then it would be an infinite loop with 2 cards left.
If they named the color (black in my case) you can use pitch cards like Unmask and only pitch land or some such (as they're black at the time.) Unmasking and then smothering sounds like the best way to nail the combo if you failed to have appropriate discard in previous turns.
Actually, if you Painter's Servant Grindstone someone with an Eldrazi titan (or similar) in their library, this is what happens:
1) They put the top two cards of their library into their graveyard.
2) Grindstone's ability checks if those two cards share a color. They do, and we return to step 1.
Between this, nobody gets priority, and therefore no triggered abilities (like the Eldrazis') are put on the stack. Effects that say "if so-and-so, repeat this process" do not re-activate / recast themselves. The spell simply keeps on resolving.
Thus, the end result will be that they put their entire library into their graveyard, then the ability that triggered when, for example, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth was put into its owner's graveyard will be put onto the stack, and that player will shuffle his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Thran Foundry
Gaea's Blessing
Timetwister
Mnemonic Nexus
Primal Command
Feldon's Cane
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SOME WAYS TO SURVIVE THE COMBO.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OR BREAK THE COMBO BEFORE IT COMES INTO PLAY
Quash
Annul
Artifact Blast
Steel Sabotage
Illumination
Halt Order
Splinter
yes this is not a full list of ways to beat the combo but it makes my point you can survive if you know what you are going up against.