Milling at the Darkmoon Faire

With Darkmoon Faire just around the corner, we received Silas Darkmoon as a gift from Blizzard. Now that Silas has been out for a few days, it is clear that he has a lot of potential--treachery memes, OTK Warrior, and many more to be seen. One combo that I found particularly intriguing involves giving your opponent Octosari via Silas and forcing them to draw their deck. Normally, this combo is very difficult to pull off in a single turn and way too risky to perform in two turns; fortunately, Rogue has access to Anka, the Buried which changes Octosari's cost to 1 and makes it a 1/1, which can easily be removed via Wicked Knife or Backstab. Once Anka is played while Octosari is in hand, the Silas+Octosari combo can be performed as early as turn 8!

Deck Basics

Mill Rogue is an archetype that has been around for a while, but it has evolved as new cards have been added to the game. There are faster versions that run Sharks and healing via Battlecries, but the slower N'Zoth-Deathrattle version has better synergy with the Silas+Octosari combo.

The game plan for N'Zoth-Deathrattle Mill Rogue is to slow down your opponent by returning their minions to their hand while playing frustrating Taunt minions. Once you get to turn 9+, your strategy is to use Shadow Reflections from Valeera with your Taunts or simply play N'Zoth, the Corruptor to stall until you can Mill your opponent to death from fatigue via Coldight Oracles.

Now that Silas exists, Rogue has another strong Mill burst option the opponent needs to fear! Play Anka, the Buried while Octosari is in hand; once you have 8 mana, play your 1 mana 1/1 Octosari, rotate it to your opponent's side of the board via Silas Darkmoon, and kill it with your Wicked Knife or Backstab (or just use a minion on your side of the board that is able to attack). The beauty of this combo is that the setup via Anka often helps smooth out our curve from turn 6-10 without losing all the value of our Deathrattle minions--specifically, Khartut Defender and Murloc Tastyfin. Furthermore, if our opponent is playing a control deck, or simply has a lot of cards in hand, the Silas+Octosari combo can be performed on turn 8 as long as you have a Wicked Knife equipped or a Backstab in hand.

Tips

The main flaw of Mill Rogue is its weakness to aggro. As long as you are prepared to struggle and fail against aggro, this deck will be a lot of fun to play against non-aggro decks.

During the Silas+Octosari combo turn, you may need to wisely position your minions to rotate. Even if your opponent has a Taunt minion on board, you can rotate it to your side of the board to allow you to attack the 1/1 Octosari if you don't have access to a Backstab. As an added bonus, this combo can be performed relatively early in the game both as a mill tool and a tempo Mind Control.

Because this deck is running minimal shuffle and double Battlecry effects, you need to be very careful with Brann Bronzebeard and Coldight Oracles. Secrets, steal cards, and polymorph effects can ruin your ability to mill your opponent effectively if you aren't careful. On that note, when performing the Silas+Octosari combo, make sure you test for Explosive Runes, Potion of Polymorph, and Snipe so you don't mill yourself or lose the combo!

Murloc Tastyfin is good at any point in the game as long as you have Coldight Oracles in your deck, so you don't have to do anything fancy with this card.

In general, when playing Rogue with Valeera the Hollow, it is wise to make sure you have a Wicked Knife equipped before playing her. If you haven't done the Silas+Octosari combo yet, then you need to make sure you have a Wicked Knife equipped before Valeera'ing Up unless you still have a Backstab or know that you can trade a minion during the combo turn.

Alternative Cards

Because Mill Rogue is not a super strong archetype at the moment, there isn't much data available to determine which cards are the best to include in the deck. However, some options are available to experiment with if you find any card in particular is not working out for you.

Questionable cards in the list are Doomsayer, Flik Skyshiv, Preparation, and N'Zoth, the Corruptor. Doomsayer is good against aggro, but this deck doesn't really beat aggro in the first place. Flik Skyshiv is very flexible, but probably isn't that important for a mill deck. Preparation is good for cheating out Vanish, but since Prep was nerfed, that combo doesn't really counter aggro anymore, and this list only runs two spells that cost more than 0 mana. Finally, N'Zoth, the Corruptor is not going to help against aggro or combo decks, and it's not really that important against control, especially since Silas+Octosari combo considerably speeds up the game.

Depth Charge, Cheat Death, Counterfeit Coin, and Evasion could probably be subbed into this list to give it more of a chance against aggro, but other traditional Mill Rogue cards (Spirit of the Shark, Antique Healbot, Zilliax, Gang Up, Togwaggle's Scheme, etc.) might be the better choice. Unfortunately, without stats on the archetype, it's hard to say what is best to use.

I think this archetype has a lot of room for refinement, but it is still a lot of fun to draw your opponent to death.

Good luck pulling of the combo, and have fun!