When I interviewed Juan Cardenas, he mentioned being impressed by a Mill deck he saw in the early rounds and was destroying its opponents. A few rounds later, I think I witnessed that deck firsthand, bouncing up and down the four tables. I’ll cut to the chase, and tell you that Jonathan Navarro has one insane Mill deck.

Navarro’s Mill

Monsters: 6
3 Thunder Dragon
1 Cyber Jar
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan

Spells: 34
1 Card of Safe Return
1 Premature Burial
3 Book of Moon
1 Graceful Charity
1 Card Destruction
1 Pot of Greed
3 Giant Trunade
2 A Feather of the Phoenix
2 Upstart Goblin
2 Level Limit – Area B
3 Reload
3 Dragged Down into the Grave
3 Spell Reproduction
3 Book of Taiyou
2 Serial Spell
3 Shallow Grave

Side: 15
2 D. D. Designator
2 Good Goblin Housekeeping
3 Jar of Greed
1 Serial Spell
1 Acid Trap Hole
2 Elephant Statue of Discord
1 Gravekeeper’s Watcher
1 Monster Reincarnation
1 Guardian Tyce

When I first saw this decklist, I didn’t even understand Navarro’s win condition. I looked and looked. I saw a lot of card drawing with Cyber Jar and Morphing Jar but nothing that could force a win. Then I watched Navarro in action, and came to a shocking realization. Cyber Jar and Morphing Jar? Those are his win conditions!

The deck aggressively tries to get out Morphing Jar or, ideally, Cyber Jar. In fact, the combos are far easier to pull off with Cyber, so often the deck will Recycle Morphing Jar until it hits Cyber and then carry on with it instead. The combos in question? A series of cards that manipulate the face-up and face-down status of Cyber Jar or Morphing Jar, and a series of cards that recycle Book of Taiyou], or accelerate the deck towards its lynchpins.

Book of Taiyou is irreplaceable. It flips the Jar face up on the turn it was summoned; or, alternatively, already flipped face down on that turn by an effect). Spell Reproduction and The Feather of the Phoenix recycle Book of Taiyou, Book of Moon, and The Shallow Grave as necessary, and in a pinch can be used for any number of other cards such as Dragged Down into the Grave and Card Destruction.

Essentially, the deck did so well because the current Advanced environment is considerably slower than its previous counterpart. There just isn’t as much raw speed in the game as there was a week ago. As such, this deck dominates most matchups unless it gets a poor start. The only thing that really hurts it is a fast Warrior deck with Marauding Captain, and unfortunately two losses from that kind of deck were enough to knock Navarro out of the running for Top 8 contention. That said, this deck has a huge amount of promise in the future and given the number of people running Mill strategies, it looks like it really might pick up. While it’s easy to see promise in decks like Evan Vargas’s Soul Control, give this deck a shot too! It will definitely surprise you with its brutal efficiency.