So, I originally installed the game in beta but I didn’t play very long as card games had never appealed to me. I came back JUST on the cusp of mill rogue rotating out and I never got a chance to try it out.
I never came to the forums though either. I only just recently made that a trend for myself. When mill was a popular deck, how complained about was it? Was it more or less than Jade Druid or other meta decks at the time?
And what happened to mill as a concept in standard? Did the devs not like mill as a concept? How come more troll/control concepts aren’t introduced like mill?
I love the idea of burning someone elses deck apart. Just the idea has me salivating. Because, right now in this meta, every card feels like it’s a purposed tool in a deck. Burning anything for most classes would be devastating.
I’m not saying rogue should get another frustrating deck to play against but I wasn’t around then to hear/investigate it’s impact. Anyone have the time to shed some light on their experiences with it? I would love some great stories with it also.
I’m not a wild player, so I dont think I’d go to wild to try it.
I also wish milling was a thing. Other cardgames can do mill perfectly well without being overpowered (even being underpowered despite having powerful tools that if introduced in Hearthstone would have the forums in uproar), why can’t Hearthstone? I understand the hate vs Mill Rogue though as that was all about looping, but non-loopable milling should be a thing.
Because unlike other games, Hearthstone is non-interactive. Mill and Self-mill are 2 of my all time favorite win cons in MTG, but because that game has graveyard hate, targeted hand disruption, and other combo disruption in the form of counterspells, etc. Facing mill or self mill in MTG doesn’t feel as frustrating as mill/self-mill does in Hearthstone. (If you’re wondering, Mecha’thun/Chef Nomi decks are effectively Hearthstone’s take on self mill.)
I played the deck a little bit (and faced it plenty), so I’ll weigh in.
Complaints were mixed. Complaints included but were not limited to:
-It was an obnoxious deck that did little but stall the game (like Freeze Mage)
-That it won more via a technicality than a real win condition from your own cards
-That it auto-countered control decks hard
Counter-complaints were:
-It had a poor winrate
-It really only had two Vanishes and two Saps (and later Valeera) for stall, so it wasn’t nearly as good at stalling as other decks
-There was a large RNG element where one needed certain cards in a certain order to do anything
-It not only got crushed by aggro, but it often ended up helping the opponent
As someone who personally played it, I can see why it was removed. The complaint that seemed to resonate the most was its polarizing nature - control decks just could not win. As the mill player yourself, you’d lose most of your games just because you got absolutely rolled by aggro decks and that’s what most of the decks are on ladder, but any control deck and it was virtually guaranteed you’d win. Freeze/OTK Mages and Control Warriors were at Mill’s mercy, and only Jade Druid escaped certain death.
It was acknowledged as a ‘bad deck with a poor winrate, but can have satisfying victories’, especially if you burned something sensitive, or the opponent failed to realize you were Mill before it was too late.
It saw a small spike in play when they introduced Valeera The Hollow, which essentially gave the deck one more stall - Vanish made a lot of sense with her, since her Stealth didn’t prevent the opponent from developing the board but Vanish reset anything they might’ve done on their turn, potentially preventing lethal one extra turn and also using her power to set up for monstrous double Oracle shenanigans.
Mill also saw a larger spike in play when Kingsbane was at its zenith and Leeching Poison was a permanent 2 mana upgrade. A lifestealing Kingsbane was the ultimate late game control tool, which helped clear the board, self-heal, prevent self-milling thanks to Valeera, and benefited enormously from aggressive cycling in order to redraw it. This is when Mill’s winrate actually started to drift up to the 50% mark, and they had to reel it back in.
But yes, milling someone is incredibly satisfying. All those milled Antonidas’, Avianas, DK Gul’Dans, N’Zoths – it was something. You had to acknowledge you weren’t going to push higher than a 40% winrate, but it was still fun to watch the world burn.
It’s a fine concept in occasion- like the warlock gnome that discards a random card wasn’t overpowered.
However a rogue milling your entire deck while you can’t do anything and can’t play any of your cards- that was very annoying to play and I’m glad they took it away.
Luckily it never became competitive but if it did it would have been problematic .
Same goes for the Murlock Oracle- if they didn’t took it away the battle cry shamans would have abused the hell out of it
8 mana spell destroy half of each player’s deck xD
Oh, really? When you just sit and watch how blue mill plays with itself returning milling spells to hand from graveyard and your deck is disappearing before you can get enough lands to summon your first minion… It is about the same as being bombarded with endless fireballs from burn mage.
Short history:
- Coldlight oracle was HoFed and moved to wild
- There it saw play in the form of Kingsbane mill rogue
- After a while the deck was nerfed due to some other standard reasons
- Mill stopped seeing play
As for my opinion on mill: Mill is funny in games that you can interact on your oponents turn or in games that you have a graveyard. The whole logic of mill created a trully polarizing games: you played controll or combo? Auto concede. You play aggro? You win.
Then say bye to mill rogue forever
…If your deck requires more than 2 lands out there to play your first creature, then you should really be packing some sort of disruption effects. Counterspells, Thoughtseizes, etc. Also, if graveyard recursion is something you’re struggling with, make sure you have some graveyard hate in your sideboard.
Fine, but now they also have “Didn’t say please”, for example.
Okay, so they have access to a counterspell that can mill 3. Your demonstration of the tools that mill has available to protect it’s game plan is irrelevant. My point was mill/self-mill decks in hearthstone receive more hatred than they do in MTG because there are tools available in MTG to disrupt those strategies.
Milling is also a “one-player-game” strategy. That makes it far worse when you look at how polarizing it is and at the very core design of HS, when considering art, lore, voicelines, characters.
Tryhard decks that employ such strategies ruin the feel and atmosphere of HS.
Which even Big Priest does not manage.
Yet.
Hahaha. I never said hello to it. But yeah, I know as a standard player I won’t get the opportunity to play it. Even though I like the idea behind it.
i dont think the anti “one player game” sentiment is a factor anymore.
I don’t know if the core concepts of Hearthstone apply anymore considering there’s little-to-no direction for most decks in standard. Rez quest priest was an answer to Galak warriors and now that rogues have been pushed aside for embiggen, Rez priest fits a larger niche but it doesn’t feel like a core concept anymore. Priests identity is lost in the fray of worthless cards. At least from my perspective, mill rogue fit an identity. Rogue feels like a cheap class. Especially when Kingsbane ran it rampant.
I toyed around with a mill deck once in a while. It was challenging at times; and I definately failed my fair share of times played. It did hurt when i lost to a mill deck; but at least there was ANOTHER option besides just playing on curve everygame. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore eh? Since some of the core values the game was focused on have been abandoned.
Oh come on, join us!
If you think about it - your limited collection always turns into wild in the Long run.
- Everything FUN turns wild, or HOF.
- if you dust them wild you get ONLY 1 card’s worth of dust for every 4 cards.
- Is it worth giving up the fun? Are you going to say bye to these pre-loved cards whenever they turn wild?
I’ve dusted all my cards going into wild since Jade rotated. I have absolutely nothing to play and my dust pool is reserved for the new expansion. I would love to have played wild but I was told by my brother not to get into it because it’s a mess. This was years ago and I just followed the advice ever since.
Ok I’m so sorry to hear about it then. But hey it’s never too late ok
Wild is like a toolbox with lots of equipment for you to use. Whenever new expansions come out, you only need to pick and choose whatever new tools your might FANCY (not NEED), much like you would choose a fancy looking torchlight to add to your toolbox. Your toolbox is always largely STABLE. You know what you need. And you can always choose different strategies because you have so many types of tools!
Whereas standard means that you will always NEED the entire expansion. Very sad and your strategy is largely UNSTABLE (changes every year with new toolbox forced upon you. This year you use torchlight, next year you use flint stones). And even then, you don’t have much tools to choose from.