Mill effects are too cheap

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I’m going to talk a little about Mill. With the new cards and decks that have been made possible because of them, I think it highlights one of the issues people have with mill. The card effects are too common, and they’re too cheap.

I understand Mill as an archetype isn’t that strong or overpowered, but people hate it, just like clog. It creates an unfun way of playing by means outside of just playing strong cards. Like Clog, it prevents you from playing your deck. Your strategy and deck are meaningless because you can’t play your cards. Either because you’re drawing filler, or you have nothing to draw at all. It’s not the same as playing against a control deck (though some might say it feels the same).

I feel Mill effects should be reserved for Gold cards, or priced higher on bronze cards since they’re easier to abuse. In my opinion, none of the gold cards that Mill has are overpowered. While Tibor, Vilgefortz, and Cantarella can highroll, I think they’re fair for what they do as they can also backfire. Traheaern is fair too. He’s costed cheap, but has low power and is very slow to play. But most importantly, all these cards are gold. They’re limited in use. You can’t duplicate them or reuse them for the most part.

The problem I believe lies with Kingslayer, and the many ways it can be reused and exploited. With Teleportation, Vigo, and Necromancy, they can use it 6 times. Even if you run a deck with no thinning, they can still get rid of your entire deck. The problem mill often had is they couldn’t win round 1 with their slow cards, and then would lose to a 2-0. But with Ring of Favor in the game, they don’t have that issue anymore.

I don’t think the issue is with Golden Nekker, Ring of Favor, or other cards that enable this strategy. I don’t even think it’s necessarily broken or unbeatable, but I do find it miserable to play against. Above all I hate the randomness factor with Kingslayer. I understand he is priced above what he plays for considering his effect, being a 4 for 6, but seeing them banish all your good cards because by luck they happened to be at the top of your deck just hurts. There’s no skill or agency in just opening bad and having them get lucky hits. I don’t even have an idea of how to make Mill “fair” or balanced. I don’t even know if there is a good fix, or if one is even needed. But I know that I’m not alone in finding Mill and Clog extremely unfun to play against.

Maybe I’m just frustrated that it’s much better because of the new cards that came this patch. But seeing Kingslayer being nerfed to 7 provision would make me feel better since that’s much pricier. Or being changed so that it targets something specific instead of something random like “Banish a random bronze card from your opponent’s deck/Banish the lowest cost card from your opponent’s deck” might be better. Maybe even send it to the graveyard instead of banishing it. And then it could be much cheaper and have higher power (but then maybe it wouldn’t be played anymore). I don’t even know if Kingslayer is the real problem, but seeing it played 5 or 6 times makes me feel like it is.

I don’t have a fix for it. I don’t know how you can balance an archetype that wins by default if the strategy works (but I guess you could say that about lots of decks). There’s nothing fun to me about losing round 1, being bled round 2, and then come round 3 you have no cards left in your hand and nothing in your deck to draw. Seeing round 2 end with nothing left just sucks. Anyways, thanks for listening to my ramble.
 
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Mill is a very controversial archetype, it is hated by many people, but likewise it is loved by many, evidence by the fact it kept being played despite being so weak previously for a very long time. With ring and nekker I'd say Mill has finally managed to claw its way out of the meme tier and is probably a solid T3 deck by now, I've managed 2.5k with it this season myself (well technically 2499).

As you state in your post you want it nerfed only because it is frustrating to play against, well, I could say that for A LOT of decks.

Kingslayer is already really expensive at 6p, he has 4 power and is insanely low tempo, and teleportation often plays for literally 0 points. I agree the randomness and highroller element can be frustrating (for both sides) as with all RNG in this game, I wouldn't mind seeing him at 4p but always banish the lowest cost card, but then people will still find ways to complain about it, I am sure.

If you want to hard counter mill, just play an SK compass deck, and other decks, with the exception of maybe hyperthin are very capable of beating it if you know how to correctly play against it.

You could also give mill a fair chance and try it yourself, there are few things as fun in this game as the moments of "oops guess you aren't going to be needing that card" =D
 
I’m going to talk a little about Mill. With the new cards and decks that have been made possible because of them, I think it highlights one of the issues people have with mill. The card effects are too common, and they’re too cheap.

I understand Mill as an archetype isn’t that strong or overpowered, but people hate it, just like clog. It creates an unfun way of playing through means that aren’t just playing strong cards. Like Clog, it prevents you from playing your deck and your cards. Your strategy and deck are meaningless because you can’t play your cards. Either because you’re drawing filler, or you have nothing to draw at all. It’s not the same as playing against a control deck (though some might say it feels the same).

I feel Mill effects should be reserved for Gold cards, or priced higher on bronze cards since they’re easier to abuse. In my opinion, none of the gold cards that Mill has are overpowered. While Tibor, Vilgefortz, and Cantarella can highroll, I think they’re fair for what they do as they can also backfire. Traheaern is fair too. He’s costed cheap, but has low power and is very slow to play. But most importantly, all these cards are gold. They’re limited in use. You can’t duplicate them or reuse them for the most part.

The problem I believe lies with Kingslayer, and the many ways it can be reused and exploited. With Teleportation, Vigo, and Necromancy, they can use it 6 times. Even if you run a deck with no thinning, they can still get rid of your entire deck. The problem mill often had is they couldn’t win round 1 with their slow cards, and then would lose to a 2-0. But with Ring of Favor in the game, they don’t have that issue.

I don’t think the issue is with Golden Nekker, Ring of Favor, or other cards that enable this strategy. I don’t even think it’s necessarily broken or unbeatable, but I do find it miserable to play against. Above all I hate the randomness factor with Kingslayer. I understand he is priced above his value for his effect, being a 4 for 6, but seeing them banish all your good cards because by luck they happened to be at the top of your deck just hurts. I don’t even have an idea of how to make Mill “fair” or balanced. I don’t even know if there is a good fix, or if one is even needed. But I know that I’m not alone though in finding Mill and Clog extremely unfun to play against.

Maybe I’m just frustrated that it’s much better because of the new cards that came this patch. But seeing Kingslayer being nerfed to 7 provision would make me feel better since that’s much pricier. Or being changed so that it targets something specific instead of something random like “Banish a random bronze card from your opponent’s deck/Banish the lowest cost card from your opponent’s deck” might be better. And then it could be much cheaper and have higher power, but then maybe it wouldn’t be played anymore. I don’t even know if Kingslayer is the real problem, but seeing it played 5 or 6 times makes me feel like it is.

I don’t have a fix for it. I don’t know how you can balance an archetype that wins by default if the strategy works (but I guess you could say that about lots of decks). There’s nothing fun to me about losing round 1, being bled round 2, and then come round 3 you have no cards left in your hand and nothing in your deck to draw. Seeing round 2 end with nothing left just sucks. Anyways, thanks for listening to my ramble.
There is no fix. It's a terrible concept at the core. Asinine archetype, which requires no skill, just like clog. It's basically legalized griefing, so of course it's going to be popular, especially after they added support to it.
 
There is no fix. It's a terrible concept at the core. Asinine archetype, which requires no skill, just like clog. It's basically legalized griefing, so of course it's going to be popular, especially after they added support to it.
Is more skilled that what many people think. It's a deck that needs to win round 1 playing low tempo cards, if you find these is easy to achive easely you should try it. It has a moment of glory in the first days of the patch when many people playd golden neckker or the potion and didn't expect it. Now is tier 3 at best if not meme.

On the other side it is a deck that you can interact with, depends of versions but many times if you kill or better seize the kingslayer the oponent ends with a deck full of dead cards. You know that you have too mulligan for your high provisions and try to win round 1 at all cost. In adition it is healthy for the meta to have mill, Vyv and travelling priest and other uninteractive ultragreed decks need to have at least some kind of counter.
 
I think the problem lies in the new cards that allow mill players win R1 easier such as Ring of Favor (Golden necker also makes more people wanting to punish that thinning tool).
RoF for its provision gives too many: you’re on Blue tempo pass with ring on 7, or play tO the last and Ring would give you 20 points; on Red you can easily outpoint every strategem (it’s still around 5 points on its own) in the game while also having a good tempo play with the Ring too.
 
Is more skilled that what many people think. It's a deck that needs to win round 1 playing low tempo cards, if you find these is easy to achive easely you should try it. It has a moment of glory in the first days of the patch when many people playd golden neckker or the potion and didn't expect it. Now is tier 3 at best if not meme.

On the other side it is a deck that you can interact with, depends of versions but many times if you kill or better seize the kingslayer the oponent ends with a deck full of dead cards. You know that you have too mulligan for your high provisions and try to win round 1 at all cost. In adition it is healthy for the meta to have mill, Vyv and travelling priest and other uninteractive ultragreed decks need to have at least some kind of counter.
No, you don't "win R1 playing low tempo cards." You win R1 playing your high tempo cards and leader, which are often enough to win R1, while also playing low-tempo cards to uninteractively destroy your opponent's deck. Or you don't win R1 at all and lose. It has very little to do with skill and everything to do with the matchup and what your opponent drew and your RNG pulled from his deck.

Viy and travelling priestess are toxic and uninteractive, but at least they end up on the board and can be countered with resets and tall punish. I cannot counter Gord or Simlas being pulled out of my deck and banished by RNG. And I certainly don't need Mill to keep the meta healthy, at the cost of the garbage experience of facing it on ladder 10 times a day.
 
If Gwent is to continue to be entertaining, it is not just cards that need counters; it is strategies as well. Mill is an absolutely essential foil for otherwise uncounterable cards (like Simlas). Moreover, it is a counter balance to thinning strategies and strategies of limiting deck size to 25 cards. I maintain that making presently automatic decisions have consequences is beneficial to game variety.

Moreover, mill is far from meta. I can think of only 10 cards that mill: ihuarraquax, Tibor, Matta, Vilgefortz, Stregobor, Isbel, Cantarella, Trahearnand two copies of Kingslayer. Of these, Isbel and Stregobor can be prevented from milling. The total provisions of these 10 cards is 79. The total power of milling cards is 44 (not counting added value they might gain from damage or playing a card). Only Ihuarraquax, Vilgefortz, and Canterella even have a chance of adding much value. Thus, over 48% of your provisions go to cards comprising 40% of your deck, which play for an average of 4.4 points per turn and 0.56 points per provision. Your remaining 15 cards can only average about 5.73 provisions each, and must generate the points needed to win rounds.

But it gets worse. Only roughly half of your mill cards are even seen in round one on the average, and only about 2/3 are seen by round two. Milling in round three is of limited value. Since 16 cards are drawn in a match, a 25 card deck has 9 cards to spare. To actually create problems for a player who does not thin himself, a mill player must find ways to replay some of these 10 cards. And replaying the cards is even lower value than playing them the first time -- typically requiring cards like Operator and Informants, or Teleportation, or Necromancy, or Renew, Coup De Grace.

If it were not that Mill hard counters the excesses of most meta deck building, it would be utterly unplayable. (I never have issues with my home-brew decks that are not "optimized" but merely use cards I enjoy -- unless those decks are my attempts to satisfy "play a million cards" type quests which use a lot of thinning to play multiple cards in a round. ) But because mill does counter these excesses of popular meta, I strongly support it as it is.
 
If Gwent is to continue to be entertaining, it is not just cards that need counters; it is strategies as well. Mill is an absolutely essential foil for otherwise uncounterable cards (like Simlas). Moreover, it is a counter balance to thinning strategies and strategies of limiting deck size to 25 cards. I maintain that making presently automatic decisions have consequences is beneficial to game variety.
What kind of [...] logic is this? Simlas is a tutor, it's like saying that Oneiromancy is an uncounterable card. More importantly, while you can definitely mill more than your "calculations" show (Speci mill list for example mills 11 cards) you are correct in that milling is a highroll fiesta and therefore cannot be a reliable counter to anything, period. Playing mill is literally smashing your head on keyboard and sometimes you win, sometime you lose, while nothing you do actually matters.

Moreover, unlike clog where you can either declog or at least reshuffle your deck with maxxi and tutor your cards out of your deck as normal to play vs opponent, mill removes your cards from the game unconditionally. 6 provision heatwave on your wincon in the deck? yeah that doesn't seem dumb as hell.

Clog from 2 patches ago, please come back, all is forgiven.
 
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If Gwent is to continue to be entertaining, it is not just cards that need counters; it is strategies as well. Mill is an absolutely essential foil for otherwise uncounterable cards (like Simlas). Moreover, it is a counter balance to thinning strategies and strategies of limiting deck size to 25 cards. I maintain that making presently automatic decisions have consequences is beneficial to game variety..

So I can choose to run a larger deck (with the average card strength being weaker) - and lose to a 25-card deck with stronger cards, or I can choose to run what has become the de facto standard 25-card deck - and risk losing to Mill?

No thanks.

This was the same argument NG Poison fans made two years ago when that deck was the rage (back when Masquerade Ball could make two or even three appearances per game). Yeah, I can choose to run a deck that can stand up to having two or three cards removed from play each round. But that deck should have at least a fighting chance against other decks, as well. Otherwise, the game turns into a 15-minute exercise in “rock, paper, scissors”.
 
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What kind of [...] logic is this? Simlas is a tutor, it's like saying that Oneiromancy is an uncounterable card. More importantly, while you can definitely mill more than your "calculations" show (Speci mill list for example mills 11 cards) you are correct in that milling is a highroll fiesta and therefore cannot be a reliable counter to anything, period. Playing mill is literally smashing your head on keyboard and sometimes you win, sometime you lose, while nothing you do actually matters.

Moreover, unlike clog where you can either declog or at least reshuffle your deck with maxxi and tutor your cards out of your deck as normal to play vs opponent, mill removes your cards from the game unconditionally. 6 provision heatwave on your wincon in the deck? yeah that doesn't seem dumb as hell.

Clog from 2 patches ago, please come back, all is forgiven.
I think the main problem everyone has with Mill is simply that it's an RNG fiesta, something that is kind of uncommon for Gwent. It requires no skill to play or to counter. The mill player hopes you mill essential cards, the opponent hopes that his best cards aren't milled.

That wasn't a big deal when mill wasn't really viable, you lose to it once, Google how to beat it and then only rarely lose to it. But especially RoF gave it a big boost since you simply can't pass against mill. RoF is nice on paper, unless you are in a matchup where passing basically means you lose.

I said this before, from all the new cards, printing RoF was a mistake. It adds nothing positive to the game and buffs the most toxic archetypes by removing their weakness of low tempo. This card needs to be nerfed to a point where it's unplayable (since removing cards isn't happening)
 
it's an RNG fiesta, something that is kind of uncommon for Gwent.
You're kidding, right? RNG is a massive part of Gwent, significantly larger than the skill factor considering things like card draws, random pings, which coin you get, create cards, matchups, I can just go on, but it's a really nasty and prevalent part of Gwent, even considering making a thread about it. Mill simply enhances the factor of your card draws/deck order, which is a garbage RNG mechanic to begin with.
 
I think the main problem everyone has with Mill is simply that it's an RNG fiesta, something that is kind of uncommon for Gwent. It requires no skill to play or to counter. The mill player hopes you mill essential cards, the opponent hopes that his best cards aren't milled.

That wasn't a big deal when mill wasn't really viable, you lose to it once, Google how to beat it and then only rarely lose to it. But especially RoF gave it a big boost since you simply can't pass against mill. RoF is nice on paper, unless you are in a matchup where passing basically means you lose.

I said this before, from all the new cards, printing RoF was a mistake. It adds nothing positive to the game and buffs the most toxic archetypes by removing their weakness of low tempo. This card needs to be nerfed to a point where it's unplayable (since removing cards isn't happening)
I basically agree, but there is one important feature of this “RNG fiesta” that I believe is being ignored. (Not by everyone — I think Zokysp hit upon it with the previous post which was written while I was working on this one.) The source of the RNG is NOT the mill decks. The fault is actually with the deck being milled (and game design that encourages the use of these decks)!

If decks did not depend so much upon the occasional big swing card “win condition”, if “mulligan fodder” bronze cards played for closer to the same value as top of the line gold cards, losing one card over another to mill would not alone determine the game outcome. It is really exactly the same issue as the RNG of “bad draws”. Except that the RNG of bad draws is somewhat mitigated by mulligans and the excessive tutoring available.

But the real problem in all this is the extreme polarization of cards and the excessive tutoring that favors decks that exploit it. Mill is perhaps the only current archetype that discourages extremes — and that is why an at least semi-viable mill is beneficial to the game.
 
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Mill is perhaps the only current archetype that discourages extremes — and that is why an at least semi-viable mill is beneficial to the game.
OK, 25-card decks and tutors aren't "extremes", though. What they are, and what Mill effectively "counters" is optimization and good deck building. I haven't seen a 26+ deck on ladder in years. Quite simply, those decks don't work in competitive play, especially since there are provision limits. And tutors already offer a deck-building consideration: do you want to spend those provisions on consistency, or would you rather include a card with value for the same cost and hope you draw it?

Nobody should be encouraged to sacrifice optimization and play bad decks to "counter" mill. There's nothing healthy about that.
 
OK, 25-card decks and tutors aren't "extremes", though. What they are, and what Mill effectively "counters" is optimization and good deck building. I haven't seen a 26+ deck on ladder in years. Quite simply, those decks don't work in competitive play, especially since there are provision limits. And tutors already offer a deck-building consideration: do you want to spend those provisions on consistency, or would you rather include a card with value for the same cost and hope you draw it?

Nobody should be encouraged to sacrifice optimization and play bad decks to "counter" mill. There's nothing healthy about that.
Neither tutors not 25 card decks are extreme -- and I'm not suggesting that players should "have" to play 26+ card decks (that would be a bad deck WITH THE CURRENT CARD SET). But it would be nice if there were incentives to play larger decks that would balance them with the 25 card "standard". And I very much appreciate that there is an option for tutoring to add either consistency or tempo at a provision cost. But I don't appreciate the extent of tutoring encouraged by the game design, and I especially don't appreciate the virtual necessity of playing binary, polarized decks to obtain maximal average value on one's provisions. This is partly a game design choice to admit "big swing" gold cards that virtually determine the games winner -- not by how they are played, but by whether they are present. But it is partly the choice of players who choose cards to enhance one big "winner" card rather than choose deck builds that balance focus on multiple, smaller win conditions (which I personally find much more interesting because the latter decks require actual adjustment to cards that are dealt). And I do appreciate the inclusion of archetypes that encourage players to rethink a sole focus on big swing cards.

A "good" deck is not entirely some abstract, ideal construction -- it is a function of the cards and archetypes available. Mill is not a "bad" design simply because it makes certain meta decks "less good". In fact, if it encourages players to deviate from the meta, I say all the better! So rather than complaining that mill makes players play "bad decks" to have a counter, I rejoice that mill encourages variety by making players reconsider certain deck-building conventions -- especially when those conventions, in my opinion, contribute to a binary , luck-based style of play that decrease the fun of the game.

My main argument is that there are many decks that completely hinge around a single theme requiring of multiple cards leading to a decisive finisher (or sequence of finishers). Examples include: SK rain (relying on Melusine, Fulmar, Bride of the Sea, Messengers of the Sea, and Rioghan), NR Priestesses (relying on Traveling Priestesses, Trollololo, Tridam Infantry, and a sizable collection of draw and return cards), NR Siege (relying on Siege, King Henselt, Radovid, Foltest's Pride, and multiple cool down cards to be accelerated), ST Waylay elves (dependent on Vanadain, Simlas, Vernossial, and tools to get as many Waylay cards into the deck as possible), NG hyperthin (devoting an entire deck to thinning to one choice card to trigger with reveals), NG assimilate (devoted entirely to assimilate cards and triggers and very dependent upon Artaud and Braathens for points). Even NG mill itself is an extreme, building an entire deck around milling the opponent of nearly all cards before round three. With any of these extreme decks, one thing going wrong sinks a match. Many of these decks have become quite consistent because thinning and tutoring gives high probability that that one thing does not go wrong -- but the vulnerability of that one misfortune does not disappear, and cannot be salvaged by quality of play. With no tutoring or thinning there is a bit more than 1/6 chance of missing drawing any given card by the end of round three. If not having that card is auto-lose, the deck is binary. With tutoring, the odds of not drawing that critical card become much less -- but the deck is still binary because the match outcome is still solely determined by luck. It is just that the "bad luck" is sufficiently rare that players come to think of them as good decks rather than binary decks. Mill simply reveals just how binary they really are.
 
My main argument is that there are many decks that completely hinge around a single theme requiring of multiple cards leading to a decisive finisher (or sequence of finishers). Examples include: SK rain (relying on Melusine, Fulmar, Bride of the Sea, Messengers of the Sea, and Rioghan), NR Priestesses (relying on Traveling Priestesses, Trollololo, Tridam Infantry, and a sizable collection of draw and return cards), NR Siege (relying on Siege, King Henselt, Radovid, Foltest's Pride, and multiple cool down cards to be accelerated), ST Waylay elves (dependent on Vanadain, Simlas, Vernossial, and tools to get as many Waylay cards into the deck as possible), NG hyperthin (devoting an entire deck to thinning to one choice card to trigger with reveals), NG assimilate (devoted entirely to assimilate cards and triggers and very dependent upon Artaud and Braathens for points). Even NG mill itself is an extreme, building an entire deck around milling the opponent of nearly all cards before round three. With any of these extreme decks, one thing going wrong sinks a match. Many of these decks have become quite consistent because thinning and tutoring gives high probability that that one thing does not go wrong -- but the vulnerability of that one misfortune does not disappear, and cannot be salvaged by quality of play. With no tutoring or thinning there is a bit more than 1/6 chance of missing drawing any given card by the end of round three. If not having that card is auto-lose, the deck is binary. With tutoring, the odds of not drawing that critical card become much less -- but the deck is still binary because the match outcome is still solely determined by luck. It is just that the "bad luck" is sufficiently rare that players come to think of them as good decks rather than binary decks. Mill simply reveals just how binary they really are.
Mill doesn't actually reveal anything, though, except how annoying and luck-dependent it, itself, is. It doesn't specifically counter any of those decks you listed. The chances that it will mill a Vanadain are pretty low overall, and with how many cards you listed in each of those lists, chances that it will mill all of the key cards are ridiculously low. Nor does it "not" counter some mythical, "fun," "non-binary" decks you did not list (which, by the way, none of the listed decks are actually binary where "one thing going wrong sinks the deck." Even if you do mill a Vanadain, the rest of the elf package has enough strong cards to beat mill. Even if you mill a priestess, there's still another one in there. Banishing Melusine does not mean auto-lose, etc. Instead, the examples of Binary decks would be something like Viy or Keltullis.) The reason being, it doesn't stop milling once it gets that terrible offensive target card even if it ever does get it. No. It keeps milling, until you're out of cards, period, and it doesn't matter one bit if you deck is "binary" or "trinary" or the most elegant and honourable deck in the world, short of being a deck consisting of 40 4p cards or something.
 
You're kidding, right? RNG is a massive part of Gwent, significantly larger than the skill factor considering things like card draws, random pings, which coin you get, create cards, matchups, I can just go on, but it's a really nasty and prevalent part of Gwent, even considering making a thread about it. Mill simply enhances the factor of your card draws/deck order, which is a garbage RNG mechanic to begin with.
No, RNG is not a big part of Gwent, quite the opposite. You can’t have a card game without any RNG, sure, but it’s such a small part in Gwent.
 
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