How to play the Mill Rogue in the wake of the latest round of card nerfs.
Our post-nerf Mill Rogue deck guide features the best deck list for Season 42, with Mulligan advice, strategy tips, card combos and synergies.
Mill Rogue is a Hearthstone deck archetype that seeks to drain the opponent’s deck, force more and more cards into their hand until they start losing cards, and then ultimately push them into the Fatigue system once their deck pile is gone. The first turn they draw from an empty deck pile will inflict one point of damage, the second inflicts two, on the third they’ll take three and so on until they die.
That’s the very simple way of explaining things, then, but the truth is this is quite a fiddly deck to play and definitely won’t suit the Hearthstone newcomer. You need to track Fatigue damage, particularly in close late-game matches where you’re under pressure from the clock, and play your cards just right in order to push your opponent over the edge while protecting your own life total.
In the first edition of our Mill Rogue guide we’re keeping things nice and simple, so that it can act as a primer for anyone who wants to get started with this archetype. If the deck becomes more popular over time though, we’ll expand on it considerably with match-up advice and even deeper strategy insight. For now, we think the deck list, Mulligan guide and combo breakdown should prove sufficient for the newcomer.
Navigation:
Use the following links to quickly navigate to the section of the guide you’re most interested in straight away!
Mill Rogue deck list and strategy
This deck list was created by the one and only Stancifka. If you know of a better version of Mill Rogue, sign up and tell us about it in the comments so we can try it out for ourselves!
| Rogue | Neutral |
|---|---|
| 2 x Backstab | 2 x Doomsayer |
| 2 x Counterfeit Coin | 2 x Youthful Brewmaster |
| 2 x Preparation | 2 x Coldlight Oracle |
| 2 x Eviscerate | 1 x Earthen Ring Farseer |
| 2 x Sap | 2 x Tar Creeper |
| 2 x Shadowblade | 2 x Saronite Chain Gang |
| 2 x Vilespine Slayer | |
| 1 x Valeera the Hollow | |
| 2 x Vanish |
Deck Import ID:
Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.
AAECAaIHAvMMgNMCDooBtAHEAe0CnwPNA4gH+AeGCfW7AoHCAsrDApvLApriAgA=
Coldlight Oracle is a crucial part of this deck, and so you should never play it onto the board if you have no way of retrieving or replacing it on the same turn. Cards like Shadowstep, Youthful Brewmaster and Shadowcaster can be used to preserve or mimic this important minion.
Refer to the combos section towards the bottom of this page for a more detailed breakdown of how this deck actually works. We’ll expand on this section with advice for aggro and control match-ups if the deck becomes more popular.
- 1. Best Budget Decks – Hearthstone: Best Budget Decks for Ashes of Outland
- 2. Tier List – Hearthstone deck tier list (Ashes of Outland)
- 3. Stealth Rogue – Stealth Rogue deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 4. Tempo Rogue – Tempo Rogue deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 5. Secret Rogue – Secret Rogue deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 6. Galakrond Rogue – Galakrond Rogue deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 7. Malygos Rogue – Malygos Rogue deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
Mill Rogue Mulligan guide
Dig hard for Coldlight Oracle, as it’s the card that really fuels this deck. In control match-ups you should throw everything back to get at this crucial piece of your game-winning puzzle.
If you’re playing against an aggressive opponent you’ll need a little more help to stay in the game, and so spells like Backstab and Eviscerate – along with minions like Doomsayer and Tarcreeper – become very valuable as well.
Save up to 40% on your Hearthstone card packs with Amazon Coins.
You get cheaper cards while also supporting the continued development of geeksplatform. Our Amazon Coins guide has more detail.
Mill Rogue tips, combos and synergies
This is a very tricky deck to pilot, so here are some core tips and card combos that you need to be thinking about. This should hopefully take some of the pain out of learning to play this kind of deck!
– You can bounce Coldlight Oracle back into your hand using Shadowstep, Youthful Brewmaster, Vanish and Shadowcaster.
– Try to use Sap whenever your opponent has a full hand and has just played a particularly expensive minion. That’ll ensure it evaporates when it returns to the opponent’s hand (or tries to, at least). A similar effect can be achieved with Vanish, of course.
– Use Valeera the Hollow to keep generating Coldlight Oracles if at all possible.
– The importance of Shadowblade in close matches where you’re both in Fatigue cannot be overstated. On the turn you equip this blade you’ll be immune from all damage, which means you can start burning through the opponent’s health rapidly without worrying about your own. This effect is not permanent!
– By default Eviscerate only does two points of damage, but you can increase that to four if you play another card first and on the same turn.
– Vilespine Slayer can destroy even the toughest enemy minion, but again you must play another card first for the effect to go off.
– Do your maths carefully at every stage of the match! Remember that Tar Creeper does extra damage on your opponent’s turn only. Maybe you can set things up nicely by chipping in one point of damage first though?
– Saronite Chain Gang can provide incredible defensive value but it is not your primary win condition at the end of the day. Try to use Vanish for pulling the card back into your hand, rather than direct retrieval which you might need more usefully for Coldlight Seer at a different stage of the game.
