This is what has worked for me:
Organize an event on your server, just as you would organize for a task force or trial. Get an eight person team together, have a few of them grab carnie door missions or outdoor missions, and then run them on invincible. Don't worry about farming MIs at all. There should be enough MIs and pets (sometimes 2 MIs per spawn) that you'll make progress on the badge, and get a nice rate of xp at the same time.
I've been co-hosting a "Saturday Morning Carnies" get together on Victory, and it's been a blast. Challenging missions, no worries about farming, good progress on the badge, a lot of xp, and a lot of fun. What's not to like? 
Does this need updated in I5? I've whacked a few Illusionist Lts, and no badge progress so far. No more than 3-4. Is this not enough to twitch the badge into being, yet?
What we did was. We got a indoor mission, then we invited Aoe dmg high lvs who needed the badge. 3 spines regen scrappers did all the work + 2 healers. The scrappers killed the decoys with theire quills. The hole team was afk all night when we woke up the next day we had the badge 
Dont do to much dmg then you will kill the master ilusjonist thats no good
I tried killing roughly 200 non-summoned leut. Illusionists. I only seemed to make it around 1/5 the way or so into the badge.
You still can progress that way, but, the fastest way is milking a few MIs, I found.
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Does this need updated in I5? I've whacked a few Illusionist Lts, and no badge progress so far. No more than 3-4. Is this not enough to twitch the badge into being, yet?
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It'll take about 6-10 (if not more) to get it going.
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Unfortuantely whenever I try to milk MIs I get people coming by to steal both the pets and/or the MI. Since MIs aren't a common spawn while you are fighting her you will see (usually a Scrapper for some reason) come stand next to you and watch the combat and as soon as the pets spawn they spring into action killing the pets and the MI.
If you say anything they will claim they were helping you. So if you see people standing around warn them off and if they don't leave kill the MI yourself. Better something than nothing. 
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
Mission on invinc. four or five lvls below the controller. Any controller w/ an aoe hold like fire cages, etc team of eight and a tank. Or any AT that can pull enemies and have them follow along. The taunter goes around and pulls them to a nice spot. Then the troller starts immob.'ing them. Soon the taunter has 7-10 all within the trollers range. This way they stay in place and the decoys are damaged by the immob. at the same time. No kill stealing worries or hunting all night for the MI's. After the roundup everyone can go watch tv or w/e. Tanker checks in once in awhile to roudup any strays. Shortly there after people switch toons and start getting the badge on their alts.
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Unfortuantely whenever I try to milk MIs I get people coming by to steal both the pets and/or the MI.
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I believe as long as you do SOME damage to them you get kill credit. So plink them and let the wanna-be killstealer do the work for you.
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Unfortuantely whenever I try to milk MIs I get people coming by to steal both the pets and/or the MI.
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I believe as long as you do SOME damage to them you get kill credit. So plink them and let the wanna-be killstealer do the work for you.
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The problem isn't them killstealing the decoys, it's them killstealing the MI. I had that happen to me around 2:30 one morning, when I'd been milking the same pair of MIs on Peregrine for better than 2 hours. This idiot defender and her scrapper sidekick jumped in out of nowhere while I was repeatedly taunting the two to keep them in aggro range and spawning and killed one of the MIs, despite my having asked them to, "Please stop attacking" in tells. Then, when they moved to the second MI and I sent another round of, "Please stop doing that," the defender LECTURED ME on how "Some people have hunt missions and you ought to get a team if you want to get the badge, because this way will take forever."
Well, no kidding. And it takes twice as long with one as it does with two. (Functionally, it added an extra half-hour; it literally would have taken me more time to recruit a team to do carnies at that hour of the night than it did to finish the badge, yet still I get an earful from that know-it-all. Grr. Teach me to be polite...)
I'd managed to drag them away from their spawn spot, they weren't preventing anything else from spawning by me milking them... and you can't convince me that a level 50 stoner with purple rocks going around his head needs "help" from a defender and a scrapper to deal with two -2 MIs. It was just plain inconsiderate.
Still makes me cranky.
~Wyrm
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
What i did is i got a few high lvl friends and spread out in Peregrine Island. We sought out our own MI and started milking them. Throughout the whole island, we opnly found six. The decoys spawn about every 3-5 min. In about 10 min. we got around 36 decoys. Those are some decent numbers for not finding MIs in door missions.
Version 1.0
You're probably looking at your badge list and thinking "What the heck are Illusionist decoys?!"
Look no further. I shall explain how to track down these elusive fiends in due time.
The Badge Itself
Name: Illusionist
Text: You have learned enough from fighting the Illusionists of the Carnival of Shadows to know the real from the fake.
The Bare Bones
Oddly enough, the total number of Illusionists you need for the badge has never been really pinned down. Some say 200, others say more.
Theory: The badge is 100 or 200, but a single summon of Illusionists (3 per) only counts as a single tick. Lt. and MIs count even less.
What are you looking for?
What counts for the badge? Lt. Illusionists, Master Illusionist bosses, and summoned decoy Illusionists.
What counts the most? The summoned ones, my friend.
Go ahead and nuke any normal Lt. Illusionist you find, but don't expect to build up your numbers very easily doing that.
Illusionist Farming - "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
There's two simple methods: 1) The standard farming method. 2) The milking method.
<ul type="square">[*]Farming Method[/list]This usually requires a Carnie mission with a nice biiig outdoor map that requires glowies to be clicked in order to complete it.
Basically, kill everything. There should be plenty of Lt. Illusionists and Master Illusionists for the plucking. Then reset the mission. Repeat until desired outcome is reached.
<ul type="square">[*] The Milking Method[/list]I prefer this method, mainly because it's slightly easier and much more compact. It also doesn't require a mission.
Basically, engage in battle with a Master Illusionist on Peregrine Island. Obviously, make sure she's a low enough level for you to handle. You also have to make sure she's not to low level too, otherwise you'll have to chase her around endlessly.
Master Illusionists summon three different pets: Phantasms (which will then summon Decoy Phantasms* on its own), Dark Servants, Illusionist (decoys).
Usually in that order, too. I have found that occasionally they'll summon all 3 pets at once, but always in that order.
There's a chance your MI's order might be different. If so, merely adjust accordingly. (I have found that something concerning A) high leveled characters and low level MIs, B) the tanker Taunt power, or C) tanker Taunt auras will affect the spawn order somehow.)
Anyway, once it comes time to summon those Illusionist decoys, the MI will put her hands together, as if she's about to use Flash. Instead of throwing her arms outward, she will spawn three Illusionist decoys. They'll immediately phase once they spawn, so you'll have to wait in order to hit them.
I'd like to specify that I did say *hit* them. Not kill them. There's a good reason for that. As long as you get a single hit on an Illusionist decoy, once they despawn naturally, you'll get credit for the kill along with the XP and influence. This also means you can simple make sure you hit each one once and then immediately begin controlling the MI again.
Milking Method DON'Ts and DOs
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Don't kill the Master Illusionist! She's what's spawning the good mobs. They still count regardless of if you kill her!!
Don't hold the Master Illusionist! As far as I know, this will prevent her from both attacking *and* summoning pets. Doesn't stop their phase shift though.
Don't use your Cryo Pistol or any other -Recharge effect on the Master Illusionist! This will make her take *longer* to summon the Illusionist decoys! Bad!
Do use Air Superiority on her! This will keep her from flying up and away from you, forcing you to chase after her.
Do use AoEs once all three Illusionist decoys spawn and de-phase. This will help ensure you don't have to chase after them later. Best power to use? Caltrops. Auto-hit, minor damage, and slow. Does the decoys in and keeps the MI controlled.[/list]Just by letting her cycle through her pets you'll start getting some numbers.
The Hybrid Method - Master Illusionist Rodeo
This method is probably the most often recommended one, mainly because it's secure like the Farming Method and gets you numbers easily like the Milking Method.
Type A: Get an Carnie mission (outdoor preferred) that needs glowies clicked to complete. Kill everything BUT the Master Illusionists. Proceed to milk all of the MIs. (Preferred way is to gather them up together.)
Advantage: No chance of kill stealing.
Disadvantage: If you kill all the MIs, you'll have to go and reset the mission and then clear it out again.
Type B: Make a team of several 40+ characters. Have each one track down and start milking an separate MI.
Advantage: If an MI is killed, that person can go find a new one without too much trouble.
Disadvantage: You can easily end up with people kill stealing your decoys or worse yet, nuking your MIs.
There you have it! How to get the Illusionist badge!
Never surrender! Never give up!
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