Highlander Burglar Tess Rogue
- Last updated Feb 17, 2022 (Fractured in Alterac Valley)
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Wild
- 14 Minions
- 13 Spells
- 2 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Thief Rogue
- Crafting Cost: 14220
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 2/28/2021 (Vol'jin Patch)
- Lekazard
- Registered User
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- 7
- 40
- 58
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
19
Deck introduction:
I've been playing Hearthstone since alpha and from day one my favorite deck type has been control. And after years and thousands of games played I've concluded that the most fun deck archetype is Tess rogue. And to give it an even more unique feeling, I go with the no duplicate highlander variant. Together with the secret package.
Just to make it clear to everyone, this is not a good deck and I'm pretty confident to say that reaching legend with it is almost impossible. It's not favored against basically any tier 1 decks, it's really slow, not easy to play, there are lots of rng-elements and there are many things that can go wrong and lose the game for you. But when you do win the game it always feels extremely rewarding and it often happens in the most epic way.
If you like to have some interaction with the other player instead of mindless smorc to face and you don't mind games that last half an hour at best then this deck can easily get you to gold or diamond ranks. That's the point when the tier 1 decks start appearing more and more frequently and the grind becomes significantly less fun. At that point you should swap from ranked to casual for the sake of your sanity and keeping the game fun.
Aim of the deck and the wind condition:
The main win condition of the deck revolves around Tess Greymane. The idea is that during the game we keep on generating class cards from other classes besides rogue. Ideally we draw Togwaggle's Scheme in the early game so it starts building up each turn while we do our best to control the board and survive. Important part of the strategy are secrets and for that we have Shadowjeweler Hanar and Cheat Death. With 4 mana or more and an empty board you play Hanar, then cheat death and after that as many subsequent secrets as possible. When Hanar dies, it will return back as 0 mana and then you can do another run with it.
The mvp card of the deck is Zephrys the Great and it serves different purposes depending on the matchup.
Why this deck is not so good:
Sorry for honesty, but against agro this deck stands next to no chance. There are no board clears besides the 8-mana Shadowcrafter Scabbs and the ones generated from other cards. Spectral Cutlass is way too slow for the matchup and even if you get Reno Jackson into the opening hand, we have no real follow-up for him.
Same goes with secret mage. We can try to interrupt secrets with a Flare from Zephrys but eventually we will run out of tempo and lose.
Warlocks will have more than enough time to set up Tickatus and destroy our deck. Even if we can manage to Togwaggle's Scheme something, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler will just create another Tickatus to screw us up even more.
Skulking Geist shuts down our end game annoyingly.
Combo decks are not impossible but it does require good draw and rng. The key card against combo is Mutanus which needs to hit their combo pieces. Secrets might also help if you manage to draw Shadowjeweler Hanar and get the correct cards to mess up their draw and spells.
Why this deck is good:
The beauty of this deck is the fact that not a single game feels the same. There are many variables included in the deck but most random cards are generated by the discover mechanic which gives the player a little room to control what's going on.
Control matchups are the ones we are looking for and that's where our game plan shines. In slow games which go into fatigue we can follow our game plan: generate value, draw and play cutlass, generate even more value and finally when we have drawn the last card from our deck we play Tess Greymane and Togwaggle's Scheme to go semi-infinite and outvalue the opponent.
Against all classes by far the highest win rate I have is against priest. If you truly loathe priest class, then this deck is really good to play back at them. Most of the time control warriors will equally have miserable time against us.
The discovery mechanic:
As fun as generating random cards is it always has the constant risk of clogging the hand with dead cards like Cataclysm or Astral Communion. To prevent this I've tried picking discovery cards as much as possible to lower the risk of getting something you don't want to play. With Tess you always have to keep track of all the cards you've played earlier trying to make them synergize without interrupting each other.
All enemy weapons played are recast with Tess overlapping with Cutlass and destroying it. Battlecry minions provide only the body but battlecries are not replayed. Twinspells on the other hand give you a second copy to your hand. Overload cards will give the mana punishment on the following turn after Tess.
There are lots of interactions you want to avoid with Tess. For example Psychic Scream is something you never want to play, because in a hilarious fashion when Tess replays it all the cards from the board go into the opponent's deck and all subsequent cards are played for the opponent. With Shadow Word: Ruin Tess will kill herself making it impossible to target her with scheme.
Hex and Polymorph might and probably will target Tess making Devolving Missiles a superior choice when facing big minions and Keywarden Ivory tends to offer it quite often and with the spellburst you get a second copy.
Draw is something you generally want to avoid. Drawing one card from Tess is still manageable but more than that will probably just make you overdraw into fatigue. Cards like Fungal Fortunes will just make Tess unplayable. Wild Growth will eventually fill your hand with Excess Mana which you really can't play because each one will end up making Tess overdraw us into fatigue even faster.
Dragon's Hoard has some interesting options you want to take under consideration. Shirvallah, the Tiger is bonkers good when given enough time to cast spells to discount the price and with Hanar it's easily doable. Kun the Forgotten King is only a 7/7 but Forest Warden Omu instead grants you full mana as long as you can activate the spellburst after Tess which you usually would have done anyway with Scheme and Shadowstep.
Ideally you want to have up to 5 secrets from other classes, a good board clear like Flamestrike and good legendary minions with strong deathrattles or other abilities. Emphasis should be put on spells that exclusively target friendly or enemy minions. Swipe for instance targets always enemy targets making it a reliable removal choice.
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Explanation for each card:
Shadowstep Multiple good targets to shadowstep. Save it for Zephrys or Tess value or use for tempo or removal if needed.
Blackwater Cutlass A really good new weapon card. Guarantees a card draw with Cavern Shinyfinder and Raiding Party. Unless your Spectral Cutlass gets removed you never actually play the weapon but instead always shuffle it back into the deck.
Deadly Poison Save it for a 4-attack Spectral Cutlass.
Dragon's Hoard In the early game it’s often best to save it for a turn or two and use later together with a combo card.
Hallucination Same as above.
Swashburglar Same as above. Don’t mulligan for pirates because of Raiding Party.
Togwaggle's Scheme Win condition for control decks. In most cases save it for Tess but keep in mind that you can also scheme enemy minions.
Wand Thief Excellent 1-drop. The combo requirement slows it down a bit, but still often excellent value.
Sir Finley Mrrgglton Works surprisingly well here. After Spectral Cutlass the rogue hero power comes obsolete and this card gives you again the option to use 2 excess mana somewhere.
Cavern Shinyfinder As long as you shuffle the 1-cost cutlass back to the deck Cavern Shinyfinder will always draw you one.
Cheat Death Save it for Shadowjeweler Hanar.
Clever Disguise Two random cards. Praise rng-sus.
Dirty Tricks As long as you have Cheat Death playable use it for the card draw.
Reconnaissance There are many viable class-cards with deathrattles. You need to pay 2 mana for but on the other hand the mana discount makes it easier to catch up next turn.
Sap Can be a game saver against big priest. Save for targets with high mana cost or big buffs.
Shadowjeweler Hanar Use together with Cheat Death and then start digging through secrets. Bear in mind that all secrets beside rogue secrets will be recast by Tess.
Zephrys the Great Always keep in hand in mulligan. Try to bounce back as many time as possible. In most matchups the single most important card of the deck.
Swindle 2-for-1 value card.
Vanessa VanCleef The combo requirement makes it a bit harder to use in early game but in some cases Vanessa can create insane value.
Raiding Party Usually you end up drawing either Swashburglar or Hench-Clan Burglar but even in those situations it’s 2-for-1 for 3 mana which is not awful. The 1-cost cutlass guarantees atleast 1 weapon draw.
Bad Luck Albatross One single Albatross will not cancel any decks game but it will slow down the opponent atleast a bit. Becomes really good if you copy it somehow by random cards.
Hench-Clan Burglar 4-mana card discovery with a 4/3-body. Part of the pirate draw engine.
Spectral Cutlass Mulligan for it and try to play as soon as you can. Buff it up Deadly Poison and by playing cards from other classes.
Vendetta Most of the time 0-cost deal 4 damage.
Keywarden Ivory It’s slow and often a bit clumsy because it can easily clunk your hand but there are some really good cards to discover. In 99% of the cases pick Devolving Missiles if given the option.
Reno Jackson Key card in highlander decks.
Flik Skyshiv Win condition against mill decks and really good against Shudderwock among others.
Mutanus the Devourer Can break combo decks or eat quest rewards. Or Shudderwocks.
Shadowcrafter Scabbs Will clean the board and give two 4/2-bodies with stealth. The mana discount from the hero power gives a really nice swing in tempo for upcoming turns.
Tess Greymane Draw it, keep building it up and in the end play it, shadowstep it back if possible and finally scheme it and have up 30 copies of Tess in your deck.
Card changes for Alterac expansion:
-1 Blackjack Stunner × 1
-1 Plagiarize × 1
-1 Dirty Rat × 1
-1 Ambush × 1
-1 Nitroboost Poison × 1
-1 Shenanigans × 1
-1 Underbelly Fence × 1
-1 Sonya Shadowdancer × 1
-1 Emperor Thaurissan × 1
-1 Vanish × 1
+1 Blackwater Cutlass
+1 Sir Finlay Mrrgglton
+1 Deadly Poison
+1 Sap
+1 Reconnaissance
+1 Vanessa VanClef
+1 Bad Luck Albatross
+1 Raiding Party
+1 Mutanus
+1 Shadowcrafter Scabbs
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If the deck gets upvoted I can go on to more details and explain the cards and different synergies more.
Thx, I love burgle rogue. Unfortunately i couldnt come up with a good version myself lately. There were times i made it to Diamond 5 with those decks.
I will do some games and come back for a feedback :D
Edit: So here im back, after some games. I made it from D10 to D4 with a winrate of 61%. I had 2 stars bonus though.
My losses were against Secret Mage (2-1), Rez Priest (2-1), Raza Priest (2-1), Big Shaman (0-1), Quest Mage (0-1) and a Pain Warlock (0-1). And then i had some wins against all kind of stuff (KB Rogue, Pirate Warrior, Cube Lock, Odd Paladin, Odd DH, Control Druid).
Sursprisingly Sonya Shadowdancer is quiet a good card in this deck. Also Flik Skyshiv is awesome! Its really a bummer that it doesnt count for Rez Priest, because all copies...wherever they are get killed but just get ressurected again...
I switched out 2 cards:
Dirty Rat --> Sap, atm it only helps against Raza Priest...against Rez Priest and all Face/Tempo decks it just gives momentum to the opponent. Sap buys me time and its alo cool to Sap a Scrapyard Colossus :)
Shenanigans --> Deady Poison, together with Nitroboost Poison it gives the weapon 6 attack, which is a reasonable amount of healing to survive for some time. Also i dont see against which deck Shenanigans should help me, besides being a combo for Shadowjeweler Hanar.
But after all, a cool deck +1 :D
I didnt think i will climb the ladder with a Burgle Rogue anytime soon. My own versions sucked...to many cool combos an no efficency :P
I've been recently considering also Deadly Poison since besides the obvious synergy with Spectral Cutlass it's also not so bad in the early game as a pseudo-removal for early game minions and giving a bit more tools for the early turns.
I also agree with Shenanigans being a weak card. It usually sticks around for a while being a good activator for Blackjack Stunner but in the end the reason I've started to dislike the card is the unfun part of not showing the card that gets bananized. Of course you can tell whether the opponent concedes or not if the secret hit something vital but besides that there's no telling whether the secret was useful or not. Lame card design imo.
With Dirty Rat I disagree on the other hand because that card alone has won so many games against especially shudderwock shaman. Like other tech cards it depends on what you are facing against, but I've always found a place for Dirty Rat in my control decks.
Sap is indeed really good against many decks and the card I would be ready to switch it for would probably be Brightwing. What hurts bw is the fact that the legendaries are often expensive neutral ones which sucks.
Yes, its really boring, that Shenanigans doesnt show what turned into a banana...it takes all the fun away. It should work like Gnomeferatu.
I also replaced Brightwing meanwhile, exactly for the reasons you mentioned.
When it comes to Dirty Rat its still a tough decision, i alsways wish that i would have it when playing Raza Priest. But i meet more Rez Priests and even without Dirty Rat i can win 50% of my games against Raza Priests:)
Mentioning 50%, im still on D4 after 38 games. Theres are my match ups: Mage 26%, Priest 21%, Rogue 16%, Warlock 11%...forget about the rest . Thats 74% of all games. For 60% of these game Dirty Rat helps more the enemy then me.
The deck is still a lot of fun. I might post later my version if you are interested, but first i need to reach 51% WR or im embarassed!
How are you doing currently?
I started climbing from bronze and from my first ten games I won 8 or 9. In low ranks this deck shines like there's no tomorrow when you're facing meme decks , casino mage and slow control decks. The games are usually long but fun like hell.
After I reached gold 5 the grind became more and more tiresome because the matchups are more and more against tier 1 decks. I reached platinum 10 and I think that's pretty much as far as I can get.
But speaking of Dirty Rat, my last game was against shaman. I had 2/3 poisonous from Ambush on board. I played Dirty Rat, pulled Shudderwock from his hand and killed it. Insta-concede from opponent. Dirty Rat mvp.
Thoughts on adding Bazaar Burglary?
I think it is a decent (yet more expensive) replacement for Spectral Cutlass. Mirage Blade doesn't heal but on the other hand you can hit without taking damage, you can ditch Cavern Shinyfinder for something better but you get one card less to mulligan and you don't lose so much tempo playing a 4 mana card but on the other after every 2 hits you need to hero power for 2 mana. Tech cards are much less valuable against it though.
Personally i prefer Cutlass because of the better early turns and mulligan. You have more cards to play with and increased odds of getting those cheap value cards which you need to be playing asap or otherwise you will just fall behind the board and the tempo.
I don't play wild, but I love burgle rogue. +1
Would love to try it out, but sadly, with Kingsbane Rogue being a tier 1 deck atm, many control decks are running Kobold Stickyfinger. Odd warriors should be free wins, but every single list is running the damn rat. Shoutouts to you for being a burgle player tho.
It totally depends on the meta and which tech cards are prevalent. I haven't seen Stickyfinger in a single game in many months but indeed if Kingsbane gets popular than people teching against it tech against Spectral Cutlass too. But since we only have one weapon in this deck and no other support for it besides drawing it and nitroboosting it, it doesn't matter so much if the opponent oozes it or even steals it. Here cutlass functions mainly to support our mid-game and keeping us alive to long enough. Deadly Poison and Nitroboost Poison really require that second copy and Valeera the Hollow to be able to hit 10+ damage with the weapon and the hero card is just way too slow to work here.