Mill Rogue is currently my favorite deck, and has been since Gang Up was released. The net-deck form of the deck, if played very well, should manage up to somewhere around rank 13 to rank 10, and performance should taper off as you encounter more mech mages & decks like that. However, thoughtful modifications can take this deck a step further.

I would like to discuss strategies and card choices related to mill rogue. As far as I see it, these are the strategies a competitive mill rogue has to be able to play with:
1) Fast & regular mill. Bounce the opponent's creatures, and mill for the win. This works if the opponent is incapable of dealing with 2 saps, 2 well-timed vanishes, and a bit of delay.
2) Super slow mill. In this scenario, potentially use one or both Gang Up cards on deathlord or antique healbot. One or both shadowsteps are going to be used on Healbot. The game is still about mill, but it's entirely about stalling into it.
3) Ideal scenario no-mill. In this scenario, the player identifies that the opponent is at a hand and board disadvantage, and allowing the opponent to draw up cards may not be advantageous. Instead, the Rogue plays some tempo cards and starts hitting for bits of damage in order to win. Mill is still an option, but avoided so long as the opponent is desperately in need of drawing cards to his hand.
4) Mill-vs-Mill. This scenario requires some thinking and math. Gang Up is best used on deathlord at least once, and healbot usually once as well. Avoid drawing altogether, but azure drake is generally worth putting on the board so long as it doesn't set up the opponent for a vanish or sap.
5) Quit (or force the opponent to grind out a slow game). In this situation, you have no hope of winning, yet you keep playing.

It is scenario #5 which I am interested in... Mill Rogue can lose before the game has begun if it is matched up against certain kinds of decks. In order to make Mill Rogue competitive, it has to be able to take on any deck, or it needs to be distinctly and ridiculously advantaged against every other deck except one or two... the latter isn't going to happen, so I am interested in making it viable against certain decks that it is pretty bad against currently.

When in scenario #5, milling the opponent is the last thing on the list. I want to take scenario #5, and turn it into something that looks like scenario #2. However, copying deathlords and antique healbots won't work against a mech mage. Other cards need to be brought into the deck. These are the cards I am considering:
- Clockwork Giant (Insanely good, but weak against a couple of things: Really really really fast hunter decks that play everything out as quickly as possible, and decks with lots of kill-cards.)
- Piloted Shredder (Worth consideration simply because it's a 4/3 and another 2-cost drop. Successfully contending for board control is always a good thing, and this may help prevent an early sap or vanish from going off... and early saps or early vanishes = bad. When you can get sap or vanish off at the right time, sap is a kill-card, and so is vanish.)
- Sludge Belcher (An absolutely stellar card in many matchups, but there isn't much room in the deck. Finding room for 2 of these might be a great choice, however Piloted Shredder costs 4 and might provide a better tempo.)

Here is a list (of one) card that I think may be useful, but might sit too much in a niche:
- Sabotage (Great card against certain decks, but horrible against others. This might be too inconsistent, and only worth consideration when the meta demands it.)
- Shiv (Acts like a Loot Hoarder, but prevents 2 damage from a 2/1... or does more damage with +spell damage on the field... fairly useful, but doesn't have a lot of impact. This card makes the deck more consistent, but the deck will consistently fail anyways if it was bound to in the first place.)

Here is a (small) list of cards that I don't quite like:
- King Mukla (Touted by a net-deck list as essential, this card is as win-more as win-more gets. I have reconsidered this card since I have started playing clockwork golems, but I feel like King Mukla makes the deck even worse against decks like mech mage, mirror-match, etc.)
- Loot Hoarder (Good for deck consistency, bad for everything else. Putting a 2/1 body on the field for 2 just doesn't do anything for this deck in any matchup that it should matter in.)

Here is my current iteration of the deck. The bolded cards simply cannot be removed from the deck at all, ever.

2x Backstab
2x Preparation
2x Shadowstep
2x Deadly Poison
1x Blade Flurry
2x Eviscerate
2x Gang Up
2x Sap
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Fan of Knives
2x Coldlight Oracle
2x Deathlord
2x Antique Healbot
2x Azure Drake
2x Vanish
2x Clockwork Giant

The reason why Azure Drake likely cannot be removed from the deck is because he's a tempo card, and he keeps the deck consistent. He almost satisfies what the deck lacks, but there's only 2 of him, and he costs 5. He makes blade flurry more useful, fan of knives more useful, backstab more useful, and dry draws less painful. He makes preparation a real thing. Blade Flurry seems like a card that could be removed... but again, since deadly poison is necessary, blade flurry becomes pretty much necessary as a 1-of as well just based on that interaction.

Clockwork Giant is something that I thought was terrible and win-more, but is really actually a great contributor to a successful deck. Against druid, you can flood your opponent's hand, and drop out clockwork giant. He's forced to remove it, and if he doesn't have BGH in hand, you're all set for the win. Clockwork Giant becomes "take an extra turn" against Druid matchups around turn 6-9, if you're playing well. In other situations, he provides big damage, and if he doesn't, he usually provides stalls for a turn. In a mirror-match, he's difficult to deal with. What I would like to do is to be able to fit in 2 more cards into the deck that can complement Clockwork Giant, and allow the Mill Rogue deck to shine as the type of deck that can be played in so many different ways... but the issue now is figuring out what cards to remove. The deck could fall back to 1 Antique Healbot, but that doesn't feel like the right answer. The deck could drop blade flurry, but I'm not sure. Bloodmage Thalnos is pretty necessary in order to maintain some deck consistency, and provide that little bit of extra +spell damage in order to make backstab & fan of knives work.

Thoughts?

HOLY fuck can you sum it up any less? How long did it take you to write this?

Summary:

Clockwork Giant is really useful. The deck needs to be played in multiple ways, not just straight mill. While deathlord, antique healbot, and azure drake offer lots of options, that isn't quite enough. Clockwork giant is a step in the right direction, but if the deck could be tweaked by another couple cards to take it in the same direction clockwork giant does (while still maintaining the efficiency of the deck in the current good matchups), it could be extremely good. Certain cards might be removable, but it's difficult to figure out what cards can be substituted for what.

Mill sucks in top 20 ranks to much Agro a lot of Druid war priest in lower than five mill just not viable unless vrs fatigue Mage .. FAtigue priest .. Control war .. 50/50 vrs Druid

Mill rogue plenty strong against Priest and Warrior.

I think the issue often lies in running a card like deathlord.. about as often as it works in your favor (burns a battle cry) it also summons something useful for your opponent..

But the idea is understood.. pull cards out of your opponents deck, then ultimately vanish to destroy them, and or mill out opponent in a very long game.

The deathlord backfires pretty hard by playing a card for your opponent which you may not be able to deal with at the time.. it also saves you vs very aggressive decks, primarily zoo lock, and face hunter.

I play standard oil rogue myself, but have watched this deck in action, if i were going to make any change, i think the first one would be swapping the deathlordsx2 for maybe some dancing swords x2

basically the same idea as the deathlord.. pulling cards from your opponents deck, but this way it doesn't pull them for free, and still in best case will end up milling your opponent.

Si agent would work too for tempo with backstab of course.

your list is very very short at 16 cards, which is nice.. I tend to only run one fan in my oil rogue, and more often keep my sprints off the mulligan.. you could make room for a single like mukla.. again it serves the purpose better it seems? unsure.

just my thought.

This post was edited by Hepzibah on Apr 17 2015 01:56am

maybe clockwork is a good idea

Mill rogue is utter garbage when you know how to play against:

always go face, kill coldlights, force him to sap/vanish early, you do NOT care about losing cards, go face with what you have.

once 2 sap 2 vanish are gone ,you won.

every time i play my mill rogue my coldlights are always in the bottom of my deck BabyRage