Emhyr mill is the worst thing to happen to Gwent in ages.

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Ildun;n9478901 said:
I'm sorry, what is mill deck?

Emhyr deck with tools to make your opponent draw all his cards, while you're left with some. This causes your Avallach/Albrich/Magne Division to draw you free cards + card advantage. Tibor is also a free 23 points card then.
 
Ildun;n9478901 said:
I'm sorry, what is mill deck?

It's a deck whose goal is to thin opponent's deck of so many cards that they run out, preferably without running out of cards themselves.

Nilfgaard mill can aim to use cards such as Albrich, Tibor Eggebracht and offensive Vilgefortz without the cards' usual drawback, which is opponent drawing a card.
 
Theodrik;n9478681 said:
If a card that forces your oponnent to draw is played and the oponnent doesn't have more cards to draw from, generate a copy of a 5 strength Last Minute Soldier in his hand instead. This way, mill decks won't get the card advantage, but they still might be good for the strength of the cards drawn for those playing them.

I think that would be too bad for mill decks. Spawning them directly instead of drawing them would be better, since mill decks generally would lose a lot of card advantage in the early game.
 
I don't know. I've been hearing horror stories of this but the few times I've come across it, I was able to hang in there. Thing is, I play NG myself so i have a lot of tools to make Avallach unavailable for spamming. Then again, I also had Assire, so I was able to keep up.

I actually tried a mill deck and it's not as grand as people think. It's incredibly low tempo and dependant on one card to do most of it's work.

Again, keep in mind that I play NG so I have the tools to fight this.
 
Snake_Foxhounder;n9479571 said:
I actually tried a mill deck and it's not as grand as people think. It's incredibly low tempo and dependant on one card to do most of it's work.

No offense, but the deck does not entirely depend on Avallac'h. I can still win games even by just replaying Albrich instead of the usual combo. But mill decks are match up dependent generally, and highly player dependent on each match, from both sides. The player that mills need to know exactly what they should do, and so does his opponent. Also, Alba Spearmen can help their tempo, and the deck is fine going -3 so long that its opponent still thins their deck.

If by not grand you meant not fun, then it is. At least for their opponents.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Sgt_Prof;n9463671 said:
Well I do manage to counter mill NG with few cards like ESKEL, JADE FIGURE, CORAL, MANTICORE VENOM, LETHO. Jade figure/coral, letho can banish demoted avallach or Albrich. If you do not run those cards, you can use eskel/venom to kill avallach even if he was returned from the graveyard.

Wait, i thought Letho didnt banish the cards he consumed anymore since Gold Immunity update. Are you sure he still banishes? Because i stopped playing my Letho deck when i had seen he had been nerfed so hardly...
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I love the mill deck, didnt expect to find so much hate already for it. Then again, i absolutely hate Emhyr, and actually use Calveit on my mill deck, which limits my Avallach uses, but gives me the element of surprise. I also dont use Tibor, hate that fattie...

Maybe for the regular Emhyr mill deck users is easy to use, but i've found it really hard (unlike most decks) to properly use and actually succeed in draining your opponent, and ended only having like a 33% winrate with it, but when you do win it's very satisfying.
 
I'm in two minds about Emhyr Mill. It's annoying if you have no answer, but then isn't everything in the game? It is good to see different win conditions, and I really wish they'd add a few more interesting ideas like Mill in the game.
 
I hate this mill deck too although I have rather high winning percentage against it; just for one reason: it takes long time as hell to finish a game.
 
So when will the NG Avalla'ch abuse will be adressed?

The title summs it up pretty well.

In the past we've seen SC faction ability dominating card advantage. So what about the NG abuse of card advantage using Avallach 4x throughout the course of a match, drying the opponent of cards with total consistency and VERY few means of avoiding it?
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Alright, i changed my mind. Yesterday i faced quite a few Emhyr mill decks and they really have an easy job. When i use Calveit mill, i actually need luck with what cards i draw, and need to play them smart, since i cant take Avallach back to my hand, but Emhyr just lets them demote and take him back to the hand, ready for another round if needed.

Also, Magne Division allows the Nilf Mill users to not need a large deck. Yesterday i faced an Emhyr that i saw had 28 cards and i assumed he wasnt the mill type, but he ended up being the most deadly and was able to recycle and control the draws like hell...
 
el_Bosco thread merged

Also, just kill Avallac'h. Without him, the opponent usually forfeits. Although some can still continue to play with Albrich.

Like I've said previously, I actually like this deck because it has a completely different win condition than other decks, making it at least more interesting. I am playing with multiple decks and I have actually never encountered a mill deck yet (in casual or ranked) except once when I was using my own mill deck. A hilarious match that was.
 
This has probably taken the crown from Spellatel as the most hideous deck to play against. Fortunately I have only encountered it a few times, alas losing all of them. Even after killing Avallach my opponent was able to mill me dry with silvers and bronzes. It's just too much when you have gold, silver and bronze cards to mill with. I don't know if it abuses game mechanics or not but it's just so incredibly boring to play against and the matches last for ages.
 
You don't have bronzes to mill. You have silvers and golds. Anyway, as has been stated: kill avallach and the strategy falls flat. The deck is pretty efficient in what it does, but it's also extremely vulnerable, now that golds aren't invulnerable.

As for the "abuse of game mechanics" argument, I'd say that makes 0 sense now that we actually got 2 bronzes that directly support the existence of mill as an archtype. I believe it's pretty clear the devs mean for mill to continue being a thing.

​​​​​​My advice: stop thinking of it as some kind of cheating and accept that it's just another deck which you need to beat. Then adapt your plays and decks to do so.
 
Mill sucks because it's all or nothing. Mill you're opponent, and mill wins. I've opponent has enough cards, mill loses, badly.
It's not fun, games should be close, and Gwent shouldn't be shouldn't be a paper rock scissors type of game. The current patch did a good job handeling with other all or nothing decks like kambi, axeman and decks with all gold finishers with Bork.
Don't realy understand why cdr added magne division for this reason, playing mill should be a niche and discouraged.
On the other hand, mill isn't all to strong now. Still, I hate it with passion.
 
"Just kill Avallac'h" is not a solution because only about 10 cards in the game can actually kill him. A lot of these cards are faction specific and require you to run a very specific deck type, Braenn and Leo for instance. Going by this logic there was also zero reason to nerf weather or Kambi, because all you need to do is run clear skies or lock to counter them respectively. The deck operates really similarly to Kambi in that if you don't run or draw the counter to their one specific card you lose the game. Given that CDPR has nerfed effects like these in the past it wouldn't be surprising for them to nerf Avallac'h next patch.

The problem with the current variation of mill is that it's extremely consistent at milling people. If you run a 25 card deck, even if you run no thinning cards, you will still get milled extremely consistently. Mill can make you draw 14 cards if it's running the maximum mill package, and they don't even need you to draw all your cards, just your all bronze ones. So in order to consistently counter mill you probably have to run a 30 card deck with zero thinning, or a 40 card deck with some thinning. That's weakening your deck way more than including some clear skies for weather or a lock for kambi.

If mill is in the game it seems like it should be a counter to decks that consistently thin down to a few cards. Making it a counter to pretty much all 25 card decks seems insane for the health of the game.
 
MooshieMooshie;n9496951 said:
The problem with the current variation of mill is that it's extremely consistent at milling people. If you run a 25 card deck, even if you run no thinning cards, you will still get milled extremely consistently.

This is exactly my problem with this NG milling thing. If you're unable to kill Avallach at one of these VERY SHORT time windows, and for that you need a proper tool to do it, its a pretty much loss for you as they can consistently run you dry of cards.

I say it is exploitative and i feel cheated. Me having zero cards and the opponent drawing more and more cards creating a absurd card advantage is just abusing game mechanics. Other cards were nerfed in the past in order to avoid this exploit and i cant understand why this remains unaddressed.
 
Since I hate boring decks like this one (and CDPR directly stated they never meant to have a "mill archetype" and will make sure it won't be viable in the future), I will offer my humble contribution.

I kept count from this hotfix's release, in ladder my score against this deck is 6-1-0 with a 25-cards deck.

The key is to pass as soon as Emhyr took Avallac'h back to the hand, after having played as much high-tempo as possible from the beginning.
His Emhyr low-tempo is necessary to set up the mill, but removes power from the opponent's board, and as long as you have passed he won't be able to use any of his milling tools.
Make sure he'll have to fill the gap with sub-optimal play, so you'll get 2+ CA and mitigate most of his later work.

Ofc, kill Avallac'h (or Artefact him) asap if there is the chance, sometimes that will slow the enemy enough to cripple the mill.
Do not use spies or low-tempo play unless you know the mill has been stopped, play aggressively and aim for the 2-0, pass when it's strategic.
If NR or NG, use Nenneke or Assire with high-power Bronze units.
If using weather, make sure the enemy board is coated (esp. Siege row) before passing.
If you have access to ticking damage/buffers (Archespore, Trebuchets, Drummers, Yencon, Triss:Butt) use them all before passing, he won't keep up the pace.
 
Checco515;n9498821 said:
and CDPR directly stated they never meant to have a "mill archetype" and will make sure it won't be viable in the future

Do you have a source for that? Because introducing Magne Division doesn't sound like CDPR had any intention of blocking mill decks.


 
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