Cloaked Mill Rogue [Guide]
- Last updated Apr 7, 2021 (Forged in the Barrens)
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Wild
- 16 Minions
- 13 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Mill Rogue
- Crafting Cost: 7480
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 11/11/2020 (Scholomance Academy)
- Pizzacats
- Registered User
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- 9
- 32
- 101
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Battle Tag:
Pizzacats#1434
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
372
Updates:
(11/23): After quite a bit of testing in climbing the ladder, I am 38-16 overall with mill rogue, including various card swaps, but my most recent version, which cut both ritualists for 1 evasion and 1 minstrel, is now 15-4, performing quite a bit better than previous versions, so I am editing the list to be my current version of the deck. MILL IS BACK.
(11/25): Swapped a backstab for an additional evasion. Hard to say exactly which is better, but Evasion feels much more powerful when it works since it can stall the whole board, so I think it is probably better. Also testing out some tech cards like eater of secrets and fan of knives, but haven't had great results with them,
(11/28): Reached Diamond 5 today, having climbed without bonus from last month. Total record across all versions of this deck is 87-42. Cut 1 prize vendor and 1 antique healbot for 2 glacial shards. having 2 healbots is a bit clunky and glacial shards are a nice way to stop some damage from high attack minions. The prize vendor slot is somewhat flexible, but I find that the cycle from prize vendor can be just enough to find you the card you need, especially since you can double it with valeera or brann if you need to. Other potential options are another backstab, a K'thir ritualist, or zilliax, but with the testing I've had so far, 1 prize vendor is quite good.
(11/30): After Diamond 5, I ran into a lot more high pressure decks (as expected), so I have been trying out ways to deal with higher pressure, and I found that cutting prize vendor for secret passage helped a bit, since you don't give your opponent an extra resource and you may find the card you need to stall another turn. The only downside about secret passage is that you have to be very careful not to draw too many cards or else you will start deleting your existing hand and mill a card on your next turn. You can use secret passage also to get another shadow when you are valeera the hollow, but I haven't found that aspect to be particularly useful.
(12/21): It's been a while, and haven't had much opportunity to play this month, but in the time that I have been able to test, I noticed more aggro, so I cut minstrel and coins for 2 prize vendors and another backstab to have some more early game presence. Not sure it's a lot better, but seems to be slightly better. Will also be testing some other stall cards like doomsayer and taunt minions to see if they make any difference. Also created my alternate mill rogue deck with n'zoth today to try out.
(12/30): I made a breakthrough in how to beat most of the meta! I am averaging about 70% WR, and the only decks I've really been unfavored against are Soul DH and secret mage, but even those are very winnable with decent draw. I was starting to struggle with how much token and aggro decks were showing up in diamond, but I tried something new since yesterday and was able to climb 5 diamond ranks pretty easily! I added doomsayers and depth charges instead of backstabs and glacial shards. There are too many board flood decks, so I was finding that the single target nature of backstab and shard wasn't good enough. Not only that, but the amount of extra stall these provide can be insane since you can much more easily stall into dk valeera. I also took out a prize vendor and put in zilliax. The extra heal has been nice, it can be magnetized on to healbot to deal with a big minion, the taunt can help stall against big minions, but it also helps against weapon based decks like kingsbane rogue.
(1/2): Switched Zilliax back for another prize vendor. I find the extra draw consistency to be a bit more needed than the extra heal and board control. I think there are enough stall cards that you don't need heal, you just need to be able to draw enough to get to them. Also speeds up the opponent's draw so that you can finish the game sooner
(1/21): Major Update: Armor vendor pushed this deck to the next level! No longer do you not have enough health against face decks like secret mage. I believe this could be enough to make mill rogue tier 1. Cut the depth charges and a doomsayer in favor of armor vendors and a coin, and flik for murloc tastyfin
(2/27): GUIDE IS UPDATED. It's been a while, but after the meta shift from Darkmoon races, I wanted to be sure the deck was set before updating the guide and list again. Made several cuts and replacements, mostly based on how effective they were in the meta. Glacial shards are great for beating kingsbane rogue, flik is great for beating odd paladin and darkglare warlock, and brain freeze is generally as good as sap or better for minions that you don't want to bounce back to hand. It also gives you a way to kill your tastyfin if you are worried about silence, sap, or not having something to trade into. Cards like doomsayer and antique healbot turned out to be too slow and not affective enough at stalling, though certainly cards to consider in the future. The same can be said for counterfeit coin, as it's a great way to fill the deck if you would like to ramp, but it can also leave you resource starved in some cases. *Note: These changes were made based on what I was facing in the top 500 legend meta.
(3/20): Not swapping any cards just yet, but I want to keep track of some potential packages that could be included in the list, so I am updating only the description to lay out some potential additions/cuts.
(4/7): It's been a while! I've been trying out some new cards in the list as well as adjusting to the new meta. There are quite a few new decks and adjusted decks which shifted the meta and required some drastic changes. I cut quite a few cards, like Glacial shards, brain freeze, sap, flik, secret passage, to make room for some new cards, cutterbutter and watch posts, as well as include some new tech decisions. Doomsayers have been great against the new tax paladin since the only answer they have is to commit a buff to a crabrider or 2 buffs to a non-crabrider, which makes it very susceptible to vanish. If they don't answer it, its pretty much game over. Eviscerate is also better than brain freeze because there are a lot of 4 and 5 hp break points in the current meta, so eviscerate can usually find a good target. Loatheb is still experimental, but it can be great against mage, which there are a lot of between secret mage and the new otk flamewaker/mozaki mage. If you can shadowstep it or shuffle it, you can completely shut out otk mage. Timing it can be pretty difficult in general though, so if you are new to the deck, I would recommend running a glacial shard or another eviscerate and just forego the potential to beat otk mage.
Introduction:
Cloak of Shadows is a great addition to mill rogue in wild and can stall out the game long enough to survive into the later turns where you can make powerful Vanish plays. Mill rogue lost most of it's viability recently because Doomsayer is not really a good enough way to stall, and Preparation nerf making Vanish come out a turn later made it nearly impossible to keep up. Cloak buys a turn, similarly to Doomsayer, but it also stops nearly all face damage, which Doomsayer cannot do, which is why it fell off in mill rogue deck.
I have created an alternate mill rogue deck with N'zoth as well which can be found here: Cloaked Millzoth Rogue - Hearthstone Decks (hearthpwn.com)
Feel free to try both and let me know what you think!
Strategy Guide:
If you are new to mill rogue or would like to learn how to increase your win rate with this deck, I will do my best to give some advice in this section about when to use cards, how you should play different in different matchups, and some general tips for important combos.
The Mulligan:
Murlocs are your friends.
If you are wondering what cards to keep in mulligan, it is almost always a good idea to keep coldlight oracle and prize vendor as well as mulligan all of your cards if you don't have one. There are exceptions, but I will explain those later.
You need to be very careful with how and when you use coldlight oracle. It can win you the game if you play it correctly, but can also lose you the game if you play it at the wrong time. I will also explain how and when to use coldlight in various match-ups.
Key Pairs:
When you are looking for mulligans, you generally look for Coldlight Oracle, but there several pairs of cards which are also good to keep in a mulligan
#1. Preparation + Swindle
#2. Preparation + Vanish
#3. The Coin + Murloc Tastyfin
Against Aggro:
While mill is not great against aggro, it still has a chance if you draw well in the early game, so it is very important to the mulligan for aggro against these classes: Demon Hunter, Warrior, Paladin, Mage, Druid, and Hunter. While the other classes can certainly play aggro, I haven't found it to be the dominant archetype when facing those decks, so it's up to you what you want to mulligan for aggro or not. Generally, if in doubt, mulligan for aggro counters so you can be ready if necessary.
Most importatant keeps:
Preparation, Evasion, Cloak of Shadows, Glacial Shard, Prize Vendor, Armor Vendor, Brain Freeze, sometimes Sap (If the deck you are facing applies pressure through buffing minions), and sometimes Shadowstep (If you plan on bouncing Armor Vendor or Glacial Shard back to hand)
Against Control/Combo:
Mill traditionally has been a counter to control and combo decks, and this certainly hasn't changed.
Most important keeps:
Coldlight Oracle, Shadowstep, Lab Recruiter/ Togwaggle's Scheme (don't keep both), Brann Bronzebeard (only if you already have coldlight in hand), Swindle, Murloc Tastyfin (if you don't have any other murlocs), and Prize Vendor.
The Aggro Matchup:
Navigating this matchup can be difficult, but not impossible. so Hopefully these tips can help you improve your winrate against aggro decks.
1. Be very careful with your use of stall cards, especially against decks which run a lot of burn. If you use them too early, they may not be stopping enough damage to win you the game. You also don't want to be overly conservative with stalls to the point where you get burned to death. However, if you think you can tank damage for a turn, then do so, and spend your turn drawing cards with swindle, coldlight, etc.
2. Be careful not to shuffle your coldlights too early. Too many coldlights in hand early on can cost you the game. It is okay to play your first coldlight "naked" without a bounce or shuffle, because sometimes you will just want to get to your stall cards faster and spend your early turns surviving.
3. The most important factor against aggro is knowing what cards are in your opponent's deck, which is not too hard to figure out if you are playing against a meta deck. For example, if you are against an odd paladin, you know they run a buff card at 5 mana, so you might want to play a stall card preemptively at 4 or 5 mana (depending on who goes first) so that their buff does minimal damage. It also is very helpful to know how much burn is left in their deck, how likely it is that they have drawn it, and compare it to how much available mana they have and how much health you have. If you are at 12 health against a secret mage, for example, Even if they have no minions on board, if they have 2 fireballs/Prince's left in their deck and 8-9 mana, you will probably want to use evasion or cloak of shadows.
4. Coldlight is not your only win condition. In cases where the opponent runs a lot of burn, it can be helpful to bounce or shuffle armor vendor so that you stay out of lethal range, lacial shards to stop them from hitting you with weapons, or flik to beat odd paladin/jade druid. Once you are Valeera the Hollow, you will be able to gain a ton of armor each turn alongside vanishes and just be able to stall out the opponent long enough until they run out of ways to deal damage.
5. Be very careful when playing around secrets. Unfortunately for this deck, secret mage is still pretty relevant in the meta, but it is still quite winnable if you play around secrets and burn well and have a bit of luck.
6. Practice. These matchups will be discouraging at first, especially if you are unfamiliar with the wild meta, but they will get a easier over time. A lot of planning is needed, and practice will help you figure out how to make those plans more easily
7. Don't be afraid to adjust the deck a little if you are facing a lot of aggro matchups. Some cards definitely depend on the meta and can be adjusted to tech against certain more prevalent matchups. It might be hard to know what to cut at first, but with practice, you'll know what cards are the most effective in the matchups you are building around.
The Control/Combo Matchup:
This deck is made to kill these decks, but you still need to be careful not to play cards too soon.
1. Coldlights Oracles are vital to success in these matchups, so if you believe you are against control or combo, like priest, then it is safe to mulligan your entire hand searching for coldlight.
2. Never play coldlight without a way to bounce it or shuffle more into your deck, unless you already have another one or tastyfin in hand. The only exception to this is brann + coldlight, or if you are desperate to survive.
3. If you are against a deck which runs mill cards or shuffle cards (like tickatus, coldlight oracles, naturalizes, espionage, archbishop, etc.), Be sure to save lab recruiter and at least 1 coldlight in hand until you can shuffle more lab recruiters into your deck, either with scheme, your other lab recruiter, or valeera's hero power. This will allow you to go infinite.
4. Do not be afraid to tank damage for a few turns. These decks run little to no burn a lot of the time, so sometimes the best move is just to pass and let their minion(s) hit you in the face, and let them commit more to the board before vanishing and milling a ton of their deck.
5. Take advantage of having them draw their own cards. It can sometimes be helpful to wait until they have 9 cards in hand to play your coldlight combo, since they will likely be drawing a lot themselves or generating cards.
6. Sap's primary purpose here is to burn more cards, so if their hand is nearly full, sap and then play coldlight for more cards milled. The only real exceptions to this are very disruptive battlecries or effects like loatheb, tickatus, and cloud prince, as well as 0 cost minions like giants, in which you'd only want to send them back to hand if their hand is already full, so it would be better to freeze them with Brain freeze or glacial shards if you can't fill their hand.
7. Flik can also win you the game a lot of the time in the right matchups. If you can play flik to get rid of a key card, like shudderwock or jades golems, be sure to save it for that purpose. Against Jade driuid and odd paladin, Flik is actually your main win condition, so after shuffling coldlight once, you'll want to shuffle her into your deck instead of coldlight.
There's plenty more that could be said about how to properly pilot the deck across various matchups, but I hope that this guide was helpful enough to get you started and able to practice to figure it out on your own! Let me know if you have any more questions about specific situations or card options.
I wish I could upvote your deck again! I've been a fan of your decks for awhile and decided to try your deck again with the Armor Vendor change. I play the exact same deck as you have in this guide and here are the results:
Versus:
Murloc Shaman - W
Reno Mage - W
Secret Mage - L
Reno Hunter - L
Secret Hunter - W
Galakrond Warrior - W
Reno Priest - W
Burgle Rogue - W
Spell Druid - W
Odd Warrior - W
Silas OTK Warrior - L
Libram Paladin - W
Burgle Rogue - L
Totem Shaman - L
Reno Shaman - W
Amara Deathrattle Priest - W
Reno Hunter - W
Secret Hunter - W
Big Rez Priest - W
Odd Rogue - L
Totem Shaman - L
Totem Shaman - W
Reno Rogue - W
Pirate Warrior - W
Dead Man's Hand Warrior - L
Big Rez Priest - W
Totem Shaman - W
Mill Rogue - L
Secret Mage - L
So, that's 19-9 W/L. Very nice! I still have trouble with Secret Mage, but I could've won the first Secret Mage game but I accidently used the wrong card on my turn (on mobile - fumble fingers, going to fast, etc.). I have to say, Armor Vendor is da MVP of this deck. Instantly better than Glacial Shards for me. I look forward to future updates to your guide if you have changes. Thanks again for the deck!
That’s awesome! Glad to hear it’s working out well for you. Yeah, secret mages are tough. I usually win by saving armor vendors to use with brann and bouncing them back to hand with vanish/shadowstep so they can’t do enough damage. In the top 1000 legend meta, there are a lot of kingsbane/aggro rogues, so I replaced doomsayer and a coin with glacial shards to freeze their face (which won me games that would’ve been unwinnable otherwise), but in a normal meta, it’s probably fine as is. And yes I will work on updating the guide soon, just been busy trying to finalize the deck and make sure I’m happy with where it’s at in the meta. With tiller coming and going, I’m still figuring out what exactly is optimal.
What's your experience been thus far against the Tiller OTK decks?
I’ve mostly won actually! You just have to be sure you have evasion up by the time their combo is ready and you win. I’ve lost maybe 2 or 3 out of idk how many, 15-20? And those were because once I didn’t have evasion up, another one priest discovered shadow form to pop it, and the other one had eater of secrets.
Any consideration of Dirty Rat for those matchups?
I haven’t needed it. Dirty rat also makes it harder to mill in some cases, so I find that unless absolutely necessary, it’s not really a good fit. I have found evasion to be enough for the most part. I occasionally lose to secret destruction, but it’s really not often enough to be worth teching for. Kingsbane rogue is a much bigger problem than tiller otk, so if you are going to tech anything, put a glacial shards or 2
You da MVP!
Thanks! Trying to stay on top of the meta and keep figuring out ways to improve, so hope the deck does well for you!
I'm 4-years old HS player but new to wild meta, a big fan of mill rogue and always wants to play it, got finally motivation to play it in wild, but I face a question about the build, is N'zoth build better than tradition or this one? I've disenchanted all wild cards so I'm thinking of crafting N'zoth for N'Zoth version or just playing this (which is I currently do, and big thanks to you for this), is N'Zoth version will be better against aggro?(with Deathlord and Khartut Defender), or this is already fine, also, what about adding Wand Thief as additional resources and freeze using mage spell?
I haven't tried a N'zoth version recently, but I imagine that swindle and cloak of shadows could benefit that deck as well. Wand thief would be good in the n'zoth version of the deck since it plays more for value, but I don't really like wand thief in this version of the deck, since this deck is more about stalling and comboing than trying to get value. I just put together a N'zoth version of the deck as well which can be found here: Cloaked Millzoth Rogue - Hearthstone Decks (hearthpwn.com)
I've just been busy the past couple weeks and haven't had as much chance to play and test new things, but would love to hear how it works for you if you try it.
big thanks for reply! I just got a golden legendary so craft N'zoth, I will definitely test N'zoth version of mill rogue and tell you the result of it! it's really nice to have someone still playing mill rogue, that's one of the most skill-depends archtype in my opinion of all time of hearthstone
You're welcome, and thank you for taking the time to comment :) Glad to hear you crafted it, it's a really fun card. Will be looking forward to hearing how it goes for you. And yes, mill rogue is my favorite archetype because of that and I've played probably ~3000 mill rogue games. Definitely takes a lot of thinking and it's very difficult to pilot perfectly, which is why I like it so much, since it always feels like there's something I can do better and keeps me coming back for more.
11-5 on Platinium where is a lot of aggro, many games are more than 20 minutes, feels pretty good against aggro, face other mill rogues too but mirror is quite EZ for me
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Is that for this deck or the n’zoth list?
N’Zoth one, and I add Tenwu for Flik cuz i dont have him
I just don't understand this deck man I cannot get a win with it and im usually diamond 3-1. am I missing something or what? it seems like I can't stall enough to just get to the point where I can survive long enough to even get off a proper mill. can someone explain any stall tactics?
It really depends on the matchup and especially in an aggro heavy meta, it can be a challenge to stall. Still not sure if this current version is the best version, and there's a lot of potential factors which go into making it properly adjusted to the meta. I don't think the current meta fits that well with this exact list, but I can try to make some suggestions on which cards to substitute and when as another section of the guide. You can also add me if you are America server and want some tips on stalling out the game. Pizzacats#1434. I can spectate and give you some suggestions on when to save cards or how best to get to milling. Mill rogue is very tough to pilot if you've never done it before, so I am definitely willing to help.
Alright, so I've been playing around with Mill Rogue a lot after we theorycrafted in earlier comments. So far, I think I've come up with a BETTER deck than the one we've been running and surprisingly it doesn't include Glacial Shard (!!! - though it could and it might, should). This new deck performs very good versus most aggro, almost all midrange, and everything control. It even works well against super aggro like Odd Paladin, which it has won me several games! The only decks that completely dumpster this deck are Aggro Druid, Secret Mage, and N'Zoth Mill Rogue (unless, of course you can Flik Skyshiv his shuffles).
Here goes:
Preparation x 2
Shadowstep x 2
Blackjack Stunner x 2
Secret Passage x 1
Sphere of Sapience x 1
Togwaggle's Scheme x 1
Wand Thief x 2
Evasion x 2
Lab Recruiter x 1
Shadowjeweler Hanar x 1
Sudden Betrayal x 2
Swindle x 2
Brann Bronzebeard x 1
Cloak of Shadows x 2
Coldlight Oracle x 2
Potion of Illusion x 1
Zilliax x 1
Flik Skyshiv x 1
Vanish x 2
Valeera the Hollow x 1
Some observations and addressing any preemptive questions, though ask away:
Potion of Illusion (a little bit costly, but it's really nice when an aggressive deck ignores your minions and you can get a 1 mana Brann, Zilliax, etc. back with it, even if you can't use it on the Oracle, though plenty of times I've used it on Oracle and found Wand Thief and Blackjack Stunners to be great too).
You might be like, "WTF, where is Sap?!? That's where Blackjack Stunner comes in and I can tell you that this card is LOADS better than Sap cause you can go infinite with them after using DK Valeera, can copy them with potions, and with Sudden Betrayal x2, you can stop the opponent from triggering easily, it's hardly a big setback. So many games, I've been able to dump two Stunners in the same turn, Vanish, or Potion, and this has won me the game in the long run. Don't forget you can always Stunner your OWN minions if you need to save something as a last resort. Last, you can DUMP HARD on priests or anyone that plays a 10 mana minion. It's dead in their hand for the rest of the game, unless they saved the coin, which has to be super rare and I haven't had anyone save the coin that long yet.
Wand Thief is the new Glacial Shard. These little dudettes are FRIGGIN amazing in Mill Rogue, I'm finding out. So many games, I've been able to pull out answers like Ice Block, Blizzard, Polymorph, Devolving Missiles and Flame Ward, etc. There's just an amazing amount of Mage freezing spells, secrets, disruption, and board clears that I pretty much get a great card every game from Wand Thief.
Sphere of Sapience is a craft that I don’t regret, not one bit. Mill decks live or die by the draw and there’s nothing worse than drawing DK Valeera or Vanish in an early turn, or drawing a Preparation or Swindle in the late game when you needed something big. So far, Sphere of Sapience should be considered core in Mill decks. It just is, trust me.
Shadowjeweler Hanar is the card that I never thought I’d want to run in a Mill deck where juggling hand size can be an issue, but this dude is straight up so annoying that he’s basically a taunt minion, and there’s been SEVERAL games where’s he’s given me GREAT secrets like Ice Block, Flame Ward, Evasion, etc. The goal with this deck is to slow down the pace enough to fill your deck up with Oracles and then mill them and SJ Hanar allows for more room to save your Evasions and Cloaks and slow the opponent down enough for you to gather your answers. Another advantage of SJ Hanar is that he makes Evasion so unpredictable now. Before, I always felt that the opponent just knew what that second Evasion was, but now, they have no friggin clue since I've played 5 other secrets before it. Personally, I think he’s core now too.
Some flex cards: I think Zilliax could easily be switched for Healbot if you’re into that, but I like the proactiveness of Zilliax. I’m still not sold on Secret Passage 100%, maybe it could be swapped for Elven Minstrel or some other draw.
Here’s what I think you should do, if you’re willing. Hit a rank floor and play this deck for awhile where you don’t have to worry about losing stars. After about 10 games or so, you’ll probably, like me, realize just how much better this iteration is. Let me know your thoughts!
I haven’t been able to play a lot this month, unfortunately. A lot going on irl. I will definitely try out some of those changes once I get the chance, and thanks for keeping me updated. It’s definitely quite different of a deck, since yours plays a bit more for value and mine mostly tries to finish the game faster, but yeah I could see how some of the strategies you mentioned could be helpful. I’m not totally sold on sphere of sapience or potion of illlusion, but I’ll try them out along with the other stuff.
Nice, you should post it on the site :)