Congratulations GWENT devs...

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...like the supposedly impossible feats of the four minute mile or a sub 10 second 100 metres sprint time, I had an opponent completely wipe out my deck so that I had no mulligan phase in round three. I can't say that I noticed anyone getting close to this for the months that I've had Nil decks play units which could thin your deck. I can't say whether I thought it possible to do this. Probably not. Anyway, someone succeeded doing this against me today. And a few games later, bang. My deck is gone. No more cards to draw on. Round three, I'm stuck with a Nil card which allows me to play a card from the top 3 cards in my deck. That's a useless card now. Maybe this was the game where I thought I was looking good going into the last round with a two card advantage. Make that one card now.

So, game devs...this is what you were aiming for?

You think it's fun to face opponents endlessly spamming their coup de grace card, Cantarella and viper witcher? Normally you know that you only have to face a particular unit twice, due to the deck limit.

I'm really not going to miss this game when I quit.
 
MIll isn't that strong except maybe if your own deck has tons of thinning. And yes, you need to 2-0 mill decks.
It's been hated ever since it first became a thing, but it still exists and I personally still think what I said here.
 
I used to hate mill decks as well, but I recently started to play a variant myself, mainly to counter the consistent meta strategies that rely on too many tutors. It wasn‘t even too bad, competitively at rank 4/5ish.
What I noticed is that to mill the others deck completely before round 3, everything has to go my way, and I need the perfect draw in round 1 (happened 1 time in about 20 games I think). Also you need the opponent to remain oblivious as to what you‘re doing. I am surprised as to how many people actually help me out by further thinning their deck, and very few catch on early and play round 2 aggressively. So while mill is certainly annoying when it works perfectly for the mill player, there is enough strategies to counter it by adjusting your own play.

Now if only I could figure out how to counter Lippy decks with my Mill strategy - the moment their deck is empty, they just fill it up again
:shrug:
 
I'm really not going to miss this game when I quit.
Why wait? I mean cardgames are not for everyone. The mill archetype in gwent is nothing compared to the rogue mill decks in magic: arena right now (which I love to play, but not against:ohstopit:).

The mill in gwent is actually quite mild, and not very competitive, it's something that one can win a match or two with but not consistently rank up with. It's similar to the NG Kolgrim deck where one spawn crap on top of your deck which is especially annoying when I'm playing an arachas queen tokens deck and draw into 1 power tokens for round 3 in effect, I might as well have been milled to zero, wouldnt have made a difference to me. Next time, go for the 2:0 against mill. :beer:

Gwent is in a very good state right now. I don't believe it's getting much better than this, and I don't think the devs can do anything about it unless they pull a homecoming 2.0 and totally scrap and reinvent the game which is not realistic. If one can't like the current iteration, then this game is not for you.
 
Against mill there should be no R3. Getting to R3 is the ultimate goal as mill.
Mill has to use many low power cards to accomplish their goal of emptying your deck, this is the key to beating them.
By the time they've gotten their 3 power Trahaern and 4 power Kingslayers out you outvalue them.
Also you should always mulligan your thinning/tutor cards against them as these help their strategy.

It takes some prior knowledge to deal with but once you know their trick it is a free win rather than a pain to face.

Or you can just run Lippy and win by default against anything related to deck manipulation.
 
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I hate Mill, turn the game into a game of luck, which is exactly what gwent claims not to be, if you are lucky to have good cards in your hand in the first round, and if your opponent cannot ban your good cards you win 2 to 0, but if you drawn badly in the first round, and your opponent bans your best cards you lose.

This kind of thing is only fun for those who are playing. Playing against mill is always a super boring match, however much you win most of the time, when you lose it is a much worse defeat than normal defeats, because it doesn't have much to do with your skill, but with luck.
 
2-0 ing mill decks is a good, but not universally effective strategy. Some decks are too slow to win round one on a bad draw. Others that rely on selected thinning are really messed up by mill strategies. On the other hand, decks that have extra cards, do not thin at all, or are all units are pretty resisted to mill.

There is one defense against mill decks that I seldom see mentioned — that is destroying mill units placed on your board. Consuming them if you have the ability is excellent. Often thunder on them (or even rockslide), although it seems inefficient, renders mill decks impotent.
 
This in short is the win conditions of Mill decks - nothing to see here really.
Complaining about them being able to mill you out of cards for a R3 is like being angry at NR to buff units :shrug:

Either way, others already shared several useful tips on how to approach this matchup. One can always learn ;)
 
that is destroying mill units placed on your board.
Yeah, that's a good point.

If you have something that can transform an allied unit you don't even need to destroy. Slave Infantry works, Griffin Witcher Adept (I think it's Adept, anyway) works on Kingslayers, and there might be other cards I can't think of right now (except Ethereal, but who plays him).
 
Against mill there should be no R3. Getting to R3 is the ultimate goal as mill.
Mill has to use many low power cards to accomplish their goal of emptying your deck, this is the key to beating them....
Also you should always mulligan your thinning/tutor cards against them as these help their strategy...Or you can just run Lippy and win by default against anything related to deck manipulation.

It occurs to me now that to have a fighting chance against mill decks, you need to draw your match-winning cards in round cards.

If you're in the unfortunate position of having cards which put cards in your deck to the top of your deck, it has now occurred to me that the better option would be to use these to put your thinning cards (if by that you mean special cards which deal damage etc) or other special cards on top, so as to not see the cards that you want to draw junked or played against you.

As for Lippy, if you have no cards in your deck, is there anything to swap with your graveyard?

I posted ages ago on the specifics of how Lippy decks work and didn't get an answer to my question. In this scenario, I'm wondering if the deck wouldn't work because there is nothing to swap. You'd get your graveyard cards into your empty deck, would you?
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Yeah, that's a good point.

If you have something that can transform an allied unit you don't even need to destroy. Slave Infantry works

I'm not sure that Transform units are a good idea, well, at least not any such unit. I'm probably thinking of Slave Infantry, which I don't think I've seen anyone play anyway. That one wouldn't be a good idea, I don't think, because it's pretty much a unit to face just one deck, this kind of mill deck.

It did occur to me that a good, general purpose to face these kinds of decks would be a consume deck, as that is their stock in trade, i.e. being able to consume their own units and that would include spying units which your opponent endlessly spams in order to beat you. The person you replied to also mentions this kind of unit.

A good kind of Transform unit to play against these kinds of decks would be Kadeweni Revenant or whatever they're called.

Basically I'm saying that I don't like one deck wonders. I.e. a deck which is only perfect for one other kind of deck. Ideally, a huge variety of decks should be competitive against any other kind of deck. I don't think that that happens on GWENT. It's frustratingly faddish, net-decks which destroy the variety of decks that you play. It's poor balancing from the devs, I think.
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Why wait? I mean cardgames are not for everyone. The mill archetype in gwent is nothing compared to the rogue mill decks in magic: arena right now (which I love to play, but not against:ohstopit:).

I'm waiting to complete Alzur's Journey. I'm only playing for the game's rewards, which are modelled on how the gambling industry gets players addicted.

I've played MTG. I hate it even more than when I'm doing badly GWENT, which is happening to me now, after a dream run of a few days, a few days ago.
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This in short is the win conditions of Mill decks - nothing to see here really.

My post noted that it was only the other day that, for the first time, I was deck-depleted. That's new, at least for me. Why's that? Did it take players a while to twig as to what cards could improve the annoyance level of their deck to extreme?
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...This kind of thing is only fun for those who are playing. Playing against mill is always a super boring match, however much you win most of the time, when you lose it is a much worse defeat than normal defeats, because it doesn't have much to do with your skill, but with luck.

I played a Nil deck today which relied on deck card differential for its wins. I thought I was in good shape in round three, with a three card advantage. Every time I play that deck, they always have that 1 power unit which boosts itself by the deck differential and...that card which turns into any card on the board...and they turn into the card which boosts by the deck differential. You really need Reset Geralt in that circumstance. Which I didn't pack. Don't intend to.
 
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My post noted that it was only the other day that, for the first time, I was deck-depleted. That's new, at least for me. Why's that? Did it take players a while to twig as to what cards could improve the annoyance level of their deck to extreme?
Well, for the record, depleting an opponent's deck to zero till R3 was already possible in earlier expansions - but as new expansions bringing new cards/options, it is just normal that mill improves as well.
 
Mill got stronger this season. I use to win Mill all the time but now I had lost against it.

NG in general got stronger.

The most annoying thing though is the sheer amount of people playing NG and the sheer amount playing Mill (in pro rank).

I play a lot of gwent daily and more than 80% of my opp are playing NG.

Some YT gwent streamers facing that same problem too

And yes you can counter mill with certain decks and certain strategies BUT it is really unhealthy if Meta is NG and Mill.

You cannot play (highly risky) thinning decks anymore (precision strike for example)

I was so happy last 2 months when I hardly play against any NG decks.
 
Mill got stronger this season. I use to win Mill all the time but now I had lost against it.

NG in general got stronger.

The most annoying thing though is the sheer amount of people playing NG and the sheer amount playing Mill (in pro rank).

I play a lot of gwent daily and more than 80% of my opp are playing NG.
And so the viscious cycle starts again. People were angry about NG being on top for months.
Came MM expansion, the faction got shafted somewhat - players started to revolt in masses for buffs and to bring back NG as a solid option with a variety of available archetypes. WotW did just that - the faction is not overpowered, but the buffs can be felt well overall. NG once again became a force to be considered, many of it's deck archetypes came back as useful, and new ones rose up.

And yes, players already start to hate it :D
 
Mill got stronger this season. I use to win Mill all the time but now I had lost against it.

Mill got stronger and now is maybe a Tier 3 deck.

I suspect that players experimenting with Mill are looking for the challenge of an alternative win condition, more than hoping to rank up and have a positive winrate.

WotW did just that - the faction is not overpowered, but the buffs can be felt well overall.

The buffs helped Nilfgaard as a faction, but what helps Mill the most are players running a lot of thinning cards. By a lot I mean, that some deck thins to 2 cards in their deck.
 
Well, for the record, depleting an opponent's deck to zero till R3 was already possible in earlier expansions - but as new expansions bringing new cards/options, it is just normal that mill improves as well.

Possible...but never achieved? I'm just wondering if I had luck for all those months with such deck units and cards not being able to deplete my deck. It had happened twice to me in one day, the first time that they had achieved that. What's your experience been?
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On the other hand, decks that have extra cards, do not thin at all, or are all units are pretty resisted to mill.

A combination of these options wouldn't be that attractive as a flexible deck against any opponent. I.e. sure, you could have at least 30 bronze units in your deck to counter milling but it just wouldn't be competitive against the vast majority of decks.
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NG once again became a force to be considered, many of it's deck archetypes came back as useful, and new ones rose up.

And yes, players already start to hate it :D

If I recall, some months back there was a prominent thread complaining about Nil poison decks being OP and needing to be nerfed. As a regular player of such a deck I couldn't believe it as my experience is that I am constantly hammered in matches by most bs boost decks of other factions. Nil was the weakest deck in my experience. People complaining about a weak deck and wanting to nerf it when there were so many bs decks in other factions which are left unchecked.
 
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And to make things worse, there will not be any new balance changes next month.

Which means more of the same. I just wish there are more variety.
 
There is one defense against mill decks that I seldom see mentioned — that is destroying mill units placed on your board. Consuming them if you have the ability is excellent.

I did eventually twig when I was playing a Ske deck that maybe I should use my leader ability of hurting your own side to take out their 1 power units which they use against you. However, that was pretty ability was meant to be reserved for my Shield maiden units. My deck didn't really have a lot of good options to make full use of them.
 
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As for Lippy, if you have no cards in your deck, is there anything to swap with your graveyard?

I posted ages ago on the specifics of how Lippy decks work and didn't get an answer to my question. In this scenario, I'm wondering if the deck wouldn't work because there is nothing to swap. You'd get your graveyard cards into your empty deck, would you?

You did get full answers, I myself wrote a long one in that post you mention.
When you use lippy with 0 cards in deck and x cards in graveyard, you will get ALL the cards from the graveyard to your deck and your graveyard will be empty.

Almost 9/10 games were the opponent was mill, they insta-forfeited when I dropped Lippy.(At least the smarter ones did)
 
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