Question about Mill decks as a viable strategy

[Zelwy]

Hello, since Runick have been around for a while now and in master duel is what we could consider a good/competitive milling deck, what is your opinion about competitive milling strategies existing in yugioh? would you like if eventually more GOOD milling strategies were made? or you think these are too unfun to play against?

[Merilirem]

Mill strats are perfectly fine. The reason people don't like Runick is because its one of many kinds of decks that can rely on floodgates to shut down play. Its not the milling that bothers people, its the unbreakable board style backrow.

I had a game just today where my opponent just flipped 3 floodgates and that was the whole plan. I either had an out or I didn't. Eldlich liked to do the same thing and its not a mill deck.

Milling itself is a perfectly valid playstyle in any game. The issue is when the milling is being done by denying the opponent any ability to interact. The same problem that exists in any deck that can run enough negates. Being able to do your moves makes people happier even if those moves fail than being unable to even try.

EDIT: Of course some people just don't like anything that plays in a non-beastick style.

[Zelwy]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Mill strats are perfectly fine. The reason people don't like Runick is because its one of many kinds of decks that can rely on floodgates to shut down play. Its not the milling that bothers people, its the unbreakable board style backrow.

I had a game just today where my opponent just flipped 3 floodgates and that was the whole plan. I either had an out or I didn't. Eldlich liked to do the same thing and its not a mill deck.

Milling itself is a perfectly valid playstyle in any game. The issue is when the milling is being done by denying the opponent any ability to interact. The same problem that exists in any deck that can run enough negates. Being able to do your moves makes people happier even if those moves fail than being unable to even try.

EDIT: Of course some people just don't like anything that plays in a non-beastick style.

I am not sure floodgates are the reason most people hate runick, I have reading a lot of comments of people saying its a unfair deck mostly because it banish intead of sending to the graveyard so most deck cant use their graveyaards effects after being milled, although I consider this is what makes this a good milling deck and not a bad one or your opponent would go +15 every time you mill.

Also about the milling being fine in any game but not denying the opponent any ability to interact, I would argue that is part of what makes the deck good here, if we removes floodgates but let say runick got more interruption from the hand that in the end make them as safe to play as with floodgates then people would dislike them anyway, that is why I said milling deck being competitive/good, basically being able to cut your opponent strategies in a effective way + milling.

note: I personally think the deck is fine and fun.

[Merilirem]

If we are just talking about the kinds of people who show up in comment sections and forums complaining about Runick then yes they complain about anything they can't easily beat. However most of those same people don't actually understand enough to give honest or accurate feedback.

The banish mill is indeed the whole point of mill decks. Yugioh has just forgotten this thanks to the grave being so good. They should be thankful enough it doesn't facedown the cards. Now that would be scary.

The floodgate version is obviously the strongest/easiest version. Floodgates are good after all.

Lets put it this way, people dislike weather painters.

[wildnike]

Any viable alternative wincon strategy is going to be seen in bad taste by a solid portion of the playerbase. It forces the opponent to play an entirely different ballgame from what they are accustomed to, and sometimes the opponent does not get to play at all. It is especially troublesome in competitive settings where variety = bad, as you want to minimize the amount of variability so your skill is the crucial factor.

Runick is complained about because it is an alternative wincon designed with modern YGO power levels. So naturally, it is going to get the brunt of all the conversation about "toxic decks, in my meta???" or whatever.

The truth is, people are actually just complaining about losing. Check the subreddit as it has gone through cycles. New good content is released, and there will be posts complaining about what they have lost to recently. Drytron bad. Numeron bad. Adventure bad. Swordsoul bad. Branded bad. Now we are at Runick bad, and again, Runick gets a special torch to its stake because it isn't negating or beating you to death. It's a slow kill which extinguishes your limited S/T removal and with more than enough recursion to keep doing it.

This is *not* to say there are decks which should not exist -- we have a banlist for a reason -- but it's important to distance yourself from confirmation bias. Is a few losses from [new deck] really enough to spill milk over, or is it just a few bad experiences?

Some time ago popular YugiTuber and pro-Tear 0 advocate MBT had said in a video something along the lines of "it's better if we ban cards less based on data and more on feeling" -- to which I assume the idea is that it "feels bad" when you're floodgate locked. Or it "feels bad" when some particular combo happens. If Konami based bans on how a subset of players feel, I doubt as a company they would have lasted for very long and I am very glad most fans are not behind the card design.

Anyways, the point. Is milling fine? Yeah. Runick is more variety in modern power YGO which isn't so vastly superior it nullifies everything else and is simply the latest floodgate punching bag in a Bo1 format.

Still loses to my Labrynth tho.

[Papa Shekels]

Milling as a whole is rather unproductive in this game. The graveyard is a resource for the vast majority of decks so trying to mill them out will just be helping them in the long run, meaning you either just lose due to it or have to find a way to turbo-mill them in 1-2 turns.

Runick improves upon that by banishing instead of milling, but as we have seen, that is still something many top decks can either benefit from directly (zombies, branded, sort of swordsoul) or put in tech options to get through it (thunder dragons, necroface, etc). And even without that, it's pretty slow because getting rid of 35+ cards is pretty slow and your opponent will often still be able to play through it. To see any success, you need to either get lucky and immediately banish all their key combo pieces OR create a situation where you can stall out indefinitely, which is quite unpopular.

Kashtira is going to soon show us how to pull off the idea properly. They banish face-down from both your deck and extra deck, so they can snipe your more important resources early on while also denying you any chance of getting a benefit off the banish. And unlike runick, they put out some pretty good board presence by themselves without extra floodgates or synchro negate spam

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Papa Shekels:

Milling as a whole is rather unproductive in this game. The graveyard is a resource for the vast majority of decks so trying to mill them out will just be helping them in the long run, meaning you either just lose due to it or have to find a way to turbo-mill them in 1-2 turns.

Runick improves upon that by banishing instead of milling, but as we have seen, that is still something many top decks can either benefit from directly (zombies, branded, sort of swordsoul) or put in tech options to get through it (thunder dragons, necroface, etc). And even without that, it's pretty slow because getting rid of 35+ cards is pretty slow and your opponent will often still be able to play through it. To see any success, you need to either get lucky and immediately banish all their key combo pieces OR create a situation where you can stall out indefinitely, which is quite unpopular.

Kashtira is going to soon show us how to pull off the idea properly. They banish face-down from both your deck and extra deck, so they can snipe your more important resources early on while also denying you any chance of getting a benefit off the banish. And unlike runick, they put out some pretty good board presence by themselves without extra floodgates or synchro negate spam

Yeah, Kashtira isn't really a mill deck per se. It uses face-down banish in general including the occasional from deck, but it still ultimately attacks you with monsters to reduce your life points to 0.

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Mill is not viable and even Runick is actually not that good. I think something like Eldlich's power level when Eldlich deck was at full strength. Yes, this might catch you by surprise, and some decks may not have an answer to this strategy, but if the Runick player loses access to the field spell, it can do almost nothing. My last opponent just left the game when I Ashed his Card of Demise

[flutter]

Runick with floodgates is annoying af, but if fountain got hit I probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

[ChaosBahamut]

I don't have a problem with the Runick archetype in and of itself (even managing to get rid of Fountain thanks to Thunderspeed Summon and Unexplored Winds one time), it's "There Can be Only One" that killed me the last time I versed against one. (halted my attempt to have the mill effects backfire with my Floo monsters; drew an out and my opponent just played another one, and by the time I drew an out to that it was too late)

[Neptuna]

Mill is perfectly fine as long as the opponent has a possibility of doing something about it.

Floodgate spam just demands different answers than typical monster spam fests. I consider it very similar to Crooked Cook in Sharks. Unless you're playing Kaijus or something big with piercing you lose.

Best of three and sidedecking when?

[Zelwy]

Originally posted by wildnike:

Any viable alternative wincon strategy is going to be seen in bad taste by a solid portion of the playerbase. It forces the opponent to play an entirely different ballgame from what they are accustomed to, and sometimes the opponent does not get to play at all. It is especially troublesome in competitive settings where variety = bad, as you want to minimize the amount of variability so your skill is the crucial factor.

Runick is complained about because it is an alternative wincon designed with modern YGO power levels. So naturally, it is going to get the brunt of all the conversation about "toxic decks, in my meta???" or whatever.

I think this is the most realistic explanation of why Runick is hated.

[Shark]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Mill strats are perfectly fine. The reason people don't like Runick is because its one of many kinds of decks that can rely on floodgates to shut down play. Its not the milling that bothers people, its the unbreakable board style backrow.

I had a game just today where my opponent just flipped 3 floodgates and that was the whole plan. I either had an out or I didn't. Eldlich liked to do the same thing and its not a mill deck.

Milling itself is a perfectly valid playstyle in any game. The issue is when the milling is being done by denying the opponent any ability to interact. The same problem that exists in any deck that can run enough negates. Being able to do your moves makes people happier even if those moves fail than being unable to even try.

EDIT: Of course some people just don't like anything that plays in a non-beastick style.

Yea milling is fine but it tends to kinda get countered by the fact that it mills. With so many cards functioning in the grave milling tends to help the opp more than it hurts unless you mill their entire deck turn one. Which is prolly the main reason why Runicks even see play since they dont mill to grave and other mill strats need extra steps to prevent the opp from gaining advantage.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Shark:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Mill strats are perfectly fine. The reason people don't like Runick is because its one of many kinds of decks that can rely on floodgates to shut down play. Its not the milling that bothers people, its the unbreakable board style backrow.

I had a game just today where my opponent just flipped 3 floodgates and that was the whole plan. I either had an out or I didn't. Eldlich liked to do the same thing and its not a mill deck.

Milling itself is a perfectly valid playstyle in any game. The issue is when the milling is being done by denying the opponent any ability to interact. The same problem that exists in any deck that can run enough negates. Being able to do your moves makes people happier even if those moves fail than being unable to even try.

EDIT: Of course some people just don't like anything that plays in a non-beastick style.

Yea milling is fine but it tends to kinda get countered by the fact that it mills. With so many cards functioning in the grave milling tends to help the opp more than it hurts unless you mill their entire deck turn one. Which is prolly the main reason why Runicks even see play since they dont mill to grave and other mill strats need extra steps to prevent the opp from gaining advantage.

That is exactly why new mills banish and Kashtira even banishes face-down. Konami learn't that lesson. Milling might be viable again if Konami prints enough generic mill banisher cards.

[Yerc2]

It's not very reliable, but a quick mill(?) deck that I've had some manner of success with involves Infernal Tempest, and 3x Cursed Necroface.
Using kaijus and hippos to proc the 3k battle damage.
And using various cards like Thundering Fury to stall and burn a few more cards, or draw/search cards.

Basically, banishes all the monsters in both players' decks, then banished 15 more cards from the top of their decks.

Generally, if someone has a 40 card deck that isn't Runic, it gets rid of all their cards, then you just pass to their turn.

Completely fails if the opponent has a 60 card deck. I guess because of how fast it is, I haven't had many people surrender the turn before they deck out.

And in regards to Runic as a mill deck, I completely agree with others. The mill part is fun and unique. The floodgating is annoying and boring.

[StJimmyK24]

It's fine in BO3 format where an opponent can side-deck in. It's ridiculous in BO1 format.

I usually scoop when the opponent's running Runick. Even if I could win the duel, it's just not worth sitting around that long just watching the cards fly around. That's the thing with Master Duel; there's no really no punishment for losing, especially if you don't care about climbing the ladder. Why bother with the boredom of aggravation of watching the mill when I can just scoop and 10 seconds later be playing an actual game?