Hearthpwn

Hi, I'm a new member who has been playing Hearthstone on-off for 2+ years and only made this account to share this deck. Be nice!

So after testing out a lot of different builds, including all the latest cards, I am convinced this is the best version of Kingsbane Rogue out there. This deck has taken me to 4 ranks below Legend for the first time in my time playing Hearthstone - all the more impressive considering I'm not even good!

I loved Kingsbane back in the day when it was a part of Standard and permanent Leeching Poison was still a thing. Unfortunately the archetype is massively different today and instead of prolonging your health total, you should instead sacrifice it willingly to take out opposing minions and use your own pirates to control the board, before utilising a combination of your weapon and minions to end the game as soon as possible.

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Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
There were lots of new cards to consider but ultimately they all missed the mark.
Foxy Fraud is at best a free 3/2 non-pirate, which makes for a good body in the early-game and fantastic combo activator, but unfortunately doesn't synergise well enough with the rest of the pirate-themed deck and couldn't replace the Flybooters, which cost a mana less and trigger 2-4 points of board damage from the cannons.

Swindle also failed to push out any of the more relevant cards in this deck, as a effective method of card draw compared to the likes of Secret Passage and Raiding Party. I found using Cloak of Shadows to be fruitless and often wasted a slot in my hand. The only instance you would need this to permit yourself an extra turn before lethal is if you lost an aggro race, and the current state of this specific deck is to maximise the frequency that you win your aggro races.

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Change History: Last updated 24th August, reviewed 29th November
Removed 1x Raiding Party and Captain Greenskin
Added 2x Bloodsail Flybooter

I feel like Captain Greenskin is too slow for this deck at 5 mana, and the times I used him often weren't the reason why I won the game other than a lucky trigger of Ship's Cannon so by replacing him and a Raiding Party with (essentially) six 1-mana pirates seemed smart. That's a lot of cannonfire!

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Mulligan:

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Use the Pirate synergy to force board control early on whilst fishing for your Kingsbane weapon. Playing any Pirate early on will summon Patches the Pirate from your deck and, if you have any, Parachute Brigand from your hand for extra value, and for this reason it is often worth playing a 1-mana Pirate turn 1 for the added damage next turn, even if you have Ship's Cannon in hand. The best-case scenario leaves you with four minions and 7/6 worth of stats on the board, turn 1.

Throughout the course of the game, your objective should be to draw into Kingsbane, equip it and then buff it using your Buccaneers, Deadly Poisons and Tinker's Sharpsword Oils. You should then use the weapon to clear out any of your opponent's potentially dangerous minions while preserving your own and using them to attack face.

While it is sometimes considered beneficial to make favourable trades, you should instead leave that to your other means of removal such as Doomerang, Eviscerate and Ship's Cannon. The latter two will also come in handy for potentially ending the game, especially Eviscerate when your opponent drops his massive Taunt minions to prevent lethal.

Similar to Pirate Warrior - a popular top-tier deck in the Wild meta last month - your aim should be to have finished off the opponent before turn 6. Unlike Pirate Warrior however, this deck has some utility cards to keep you going past this stage of the game and continue to seek out lethal, namely Secret Passage and Cutting Class. Used in combination with each other, you will find yourself drawing through up to 14 different cards in a single turn for as little as 0 mana. (Yep, Secret Passage is pretty broken!)

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Synergies
Pirates are obviously prevalent in this deck, and arguably work better together than any other minion type in the metagame. Triggering the Ship's Cannon enough times early in the game can just result in the opponent conceding, especially if you've just wiped his side of the board clean.

Buccaneer is a fantastic turn-1 Pirate to get the ball rolling and flood your own side of the board, and also buffs your Kingsbane providing it sticks. But the card that has taken me by surprise the most during testing has been Doomerang, because it doesn't just replace Backstab or Sap as a single-target removal option, and it doesn't just extend the longevity of your Kingsbane weapon. It also allows you to abuse your Buccaneer's passive ability and further increase the attack of your weapon when you re-equip it!

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Substitutions
Sap - allows you to remove a large Taunt minion and effectively save your lethal. Ultimately though I found this was rarely the case, and it wasn't often that I couldn't achieve lethal anyway with a combination of my buffed Kingsbane, board presence and Eviscerate or Doomerang in hand, even if I had to use Secret Passage and Cutting Class to find them. If you don't have Doomerang though, this is a solid backup option that does a slightly better job against buff Paladins in particular.

Steeldancer - A super-fun card that I loved using and will definitely use again but if you care more about winning then she's not for you. The randomness of the mininon generated adds inconsistency to this deck, and I like the only inconsistent thing about my decks to be the draw. Unfortunately she isn't a pirate either so when you don't have a buffed-up weapon equipped she lacks synergy with anything else.

Doctor Krastinov - Also a super-fun new card, but the high cost means by the time you play it, he's often too situational and rarely impacts the final moments of the game. If you're thinking of using this then try Captain Greenskin instead, which is at least a pirate and therefore will synergise with other parts of your deck as well.

Myra's Unstable Element - A card I've seen used in mirror-matchups and by Twitch and YouTube streamer GetMeowth. In my honest opinion, if cycling through 14 different cards with both Secret Passage and Cutting Class doesn't work for you, then this isn't going to change that. Admittedly, though, I didn't use it because I don't have it.