Millhouse Manastorm Guide at 11K+ MMR

Despite being nerfed by Blizzard a couple months back, Millhouse Manastorm remains one of my favorite heroes to play and here are some tips, guides and tricks on how I play Millhouse at 11k+ MMR.

Picking Millhouse

I like picking Millhouse over most Tier 3 and 4 heroes and even some Tier 2 heroes, but the times I look forward to picking Millhouse the most is when Dragons, Beast and Pirates are all in the game.

• Dragons – finding an early game Kalecgos is extremely strong with Millhouse because no one else can cycle battlecries as efficiently as Millhouse since buying and selling battlecry minions only costs 1 gold overall. Additionally, if you find Steward of Times (3/4 Dragons – sell to give Tavern minions +1/+1), it only costs 1 gold to give the shop a +1/+1 buff by buying the dragon and immediately selling it.

• Beasts – similar to cycling dragons above. If beasts are in the game and you can find some early game Rabid Saurolisks, it’s really easy to cycle deathrattle minions throughout the game to continue buffing your Saurolisks. Even if you find a Saurolisk in the mid-game, sometimes it’s still worth it to pick it up since you can scale it very quickly.

• Pirates – pirates are a huge buff to Millhouse because of a couple cards. Deck Swabbies reduce the cost of tiering up and by buying a Deck Swabbie and selling it on the same turn, you’re essentially “banking” 1 gold for the future since you spend 1 gold that turn but the cost to tier up is reduced by 1. Another great card is the 3/3 Freedealing Gambler that sells for 3 gold. Buying this and selling it on the same turn with Millhouse is an immediate profit of 1 gold or it can be saved for future turns to significantly reduce the cost of tiering up or allowing you to quickly replace it with stronger minions in the shop. Salty Looter, Cap’n Hoggarr and Southsea Strongarm all benefit from Millhouse’s hero power as well since it becomes very cheap to cycle many pirates in a single turn. Having a Cap’n Hoggar on the board greatly reduces the “penalty” of costing 2 gold to refresh the tavern if you can find some pirates.

Playing Millhouse

Turn 1 – 3 gold – 6 to tier – look for a token generator such as a 2/1 Murloc or a 1/1 Alleycat. Sell the token and buy another minion. Alternatively, you can also buy a Deck Swabbie, play it and then sell it and buy another minion.

Turn 2 – 4 gold – 5 to tier – this turn is more flexible and depends on your start and what is being offered on your board. You have the option to buy two minions on this turn or sell a minion and tier up to 4. If you played a deck swabbie on the first turn, you can also just tier up without selling anything. If you have the option to tier up on this turn and still maintain a minion on board to win or tie the next fight, generally I would advise it’s a good idea to do so cause then you spend turns 3 and 4 buying tier 2 minions to fill your board.

Turn 3 – 5 gold – if you’re still on Tier 1, I generally tier up, sell a minion and buy a better minion to replace it if possible. If you’re on Tier 2, generally sell your minion and buy 3 of the best minions offered.

Turn 4 – 6 gold – buy 3 of the best minions available to you. Even if it’s terrible, I generally wouldn’t advise refreshing the tavern.

Turn 5 – 7 gold – depending on what turn you tiered up to 2, this will either be sell a minion and tier up to tier 3 or tier up and buy one minion.

Turn 6 – 8 gold – this turn is fairly discretionary. At this point, it will depend on your health and board state as well as what is being offered in the shop during this turn. If you’re relatively ahead and comfortable with your board state, this would be a good opportunity to tier up to Tier 4 on this turn. If you’re feeling less confident in your board or your HP is starting to dip, you can spend this turn reinforcing your board with (hopefully) tier 3 minions and maybe even rerolling the shop once and wait until the next turn to tier up. Getting to Tier 4 as early as possible is extremely important because you gain access to one additional minion in the shop and thus reduces the risk that you will need to reroll to find anything good. From this point onwards, I’ll generally spend anywhere from 1-3 turns staying on Tier 4 before tiering up to Tier 5.

Other thoughts and tips

• Picking up a Zerus is much more of a low-risk high-reward choice as Millhouse since it’s less punishing at 2 gold than by buying it as any other hero for 3 gold.

• Crowd Favorite is another amazing Millhouse card because you can cycle battlecry minions early on in order to scale up these minions. You can also take some Crowd Favorites that have been buffed and transition them to a Kalecgos Dragon build where they can continue to be buffed in the late game as well by battlecry minions

• It’s significantly more gold-efficient in the mid and late game to buy minions instead of spending 2 gold to refresh the tavern. You can use this to your advantage by picking up tech cards that may be useful to have on-hand that you don’t necessarily need right away (such as Khadgar and Brann for a future murloc transition or a 1/3 Unstable Ghoul to fight mech boards). You can also pick up pairs of minions that you find in hopes of getting triples and oftentimes in the mid-game I’ll find myself with 5+ cards in my hand as Millhouse.

• Try to be as flexible with your board as possible and don’t try to force a specific tribe too early in the game (especially Murlocs) since it’s extremely punishing to have to re-roll the shop for 2 gold trying to find specific minions. Be very open minded with your board and in the early and mid-game just aim to build the strongest board you can each turn without worrying about board synergy too much.

I hope the above helps you with your Millhouse Manastorm games! I played a perfect zero-loss 40 health game of Millhouse at 11.8K MMR and if you want to check it out as well as see the my tips in action, check out the following video:

https://youtu.be/NrbRhrtquKw