Hearthpwn

Introduction

Hey everyone, I have played a lot of aggro rogue ever since I first made my rogue aggro mill deck. Now with Naxxramas released,  I have been testing a lot of different decks. What I have found most effective so far is a new version of the aggro rogue,  with a small Naxx twist, which includes 2 Haunted Creepers. I was in a bit of a rut one evening and fell far down in the legend ranks, but this deck has helped me to get back into the 100s. So far I have managed a 72% win rate out of 47 games at legend.

Card talk

Even though this deck is similar to other aggro rogue decks this version has some minor differences that I find work well in the current meta.

Fan of Knives - There are a lot of small minions currently present with all the token druids/aggro rogues/zoos which often gives Fan of Knives great value, as well as extra card draw to help get your combo cards.

Knife Juggler- This card works really well together with the five 1-drops in the deck as well as the Haunted Creepers deathrattle which gives 2 free knives as it dies if you have the Knife Juggler down. I will rarely play this minion on turn 2 but instead play it later when I can combo it together with other minions.

Haunted Creeper - My favourite turn 2 play when I don’t have the coin; this minion is such a pain to remove for the opponent especially early game, and it helps you get that early board presence that you can use to snowball into a fast victory.

Blood Knight - There are a lot of divine shields in the meta right now, from zoo locks to shamans to aggro rogues and even control decks with their Sunwalkers. I am able to play this as a 6/6 or higher, more often than not.

Mulligan

The strategy for mulliganing is slightly different depending if I have the coin or not. The basic idea is that I want something to play on both turn 1 and 2 so I’m looking to get one card each to play for those turns. I will usually mulligan everything else away, while keeping the highest priority minions per turn that I have in my hand. I don’t always stick completely to this plan but it is a good basic mulligan strategy.

Here is the list in order of priority for when I don’t have the coin:

Turn 1 Argent Squire, Leper Gnome / Turn 2 Haunted Creeper, Knife Juggler, Loot Hoarder

Here is the list in order of priority for when I do have the coin:

Turn 1 Argent Squire, Leper Gnome / Turn 2 SI:7 Agent, King Mukla, Haunted Creeper, Knife Juggler, Loot Hoarder, Deadly Poison

There is one exception to the rule; I will always keep a Coldlight Oracle if I have it no matter what since the chance of running out of cards without is high, I will not keep two however.

Now if I already have a turn 1 and turn 2 play I will be looking for good turn 3 plays like Mukla and Deadly Poison, or situational cards like Blade Flurry if I’m against a warlock or shaman.

Legendary card replacements

Leeroy - Can be replaced with a second Arcane Golem.

Mukla - Can be replaced with a Harvest Golem.

Thalnos - Can be replaced with a second Southsea Deckhand.

Gameplan

Try to grab board control early on and look for efficient trades. Getting board control early often results in more damage over time than mindlessly attacking the opponent’s face. The real trick is to know when to switch gears and just relentlessly go for the throat. You would switch when you can see lethal within the next two turns only playing cards from your hand even if the opponent clears your board every turn.

Say the opponent has 28 life and you have a loot hoarder on the board and the opponent has a 3/2, you have 6 mana, and your hand contains Deadly Poison, Leeroy, Shadowstep, Cold Blood, Argent Squire and Eviscerate. Now the right move would be dagger up with Deadly Poison attack the face, attack face with the Loot Hoarder and play the Argent Squire and Eviscerate to the face to get him down to 19 life because then with 7 mana you can kill him next turn with Leeroy->Cold Blood->Shadowstep->Leeroy->dagger with Deadly Poison to the face. Whereas if you had traded the Loot Hoarder with his 3/2 you may or may not have enough damage to kill him next turn, depending on what the Loot Hoarder drew, for example another Deadly Poison. Always be on the look-out for possible future lethals.

Thanks for reading this far, if you enjoyed the write up go ahead and give it an upvote.

Here is a video of me playing the deck earlier today.