Opinion: The prevalence of Mill isn’t a problem because it’s too good – it’s because it hampers creative deck design

This season has been the most frustrating on record for me (I've been playing for several years) because the new cards are generally so well designed, and I had a bunch of fun at first putting together some off-meta decks that could still be competitive. It's been disappointing to watch all of them run into the Mill buzzsaw, which feels like every other match on average in rank 1-3. In my last match, I played a homebrew deck pretty well against a Mill opponent who made several misplays (I passed 1 turn just before they played ring of favor, lost R1 but went 3 cards up with carryover, and managed to pointslam quite effectively in a short R3 after I got milled) – and still lost to a late golden nekker.

Winning against Mill still isn't too hard if you tech specifically against it – I've found the most success with a double Kelly deck that's designed to push R1 at all costs and go 2-0, running my own ring of favor and a spores to counter theirs, and there are plenty of other counters – but it's just been a huge bummer to watch my other (much more wholesome) decks that might have a chance against anything but Mill sit unused in favor of a fairly standard and toxic Kelly deck. I finally got up to rank 1 and will probably be able to grind up to pro, but it's been unfun enough that I might just sit the rest of the season out :/ Fingers crossed for some mill-adjacent nerfs in the next patch.