[Legend] Skulker Rogue - Full Guide
- Last updated May 20, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)
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Wild
- 12 Minions
- 18 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 3480
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/27/2015 (Blackrock Launch)
- Bernibolden
- Registered User
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- 11
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- 35
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Battle Tag:
Bernibolden#1906
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
180
Hi there,
I just hit legend with this rogue deck in NA server. (Season 13)
It's a pretty standard rogue list, but the addition of Dark Iron Skulker raised the win rate against Warlock matchup to over 80%, and the deck's overall win rate went from 47%, since I started playing rogue last month, to 63% in the last five ranks, which was enough edge to push to legend.
This season's climb was weird, since it took me longer to reach rank 5 than legend. It was 424 games till the Sea Giant, during which I meekly achieved a 52% w/rate while playing with 12 different decks, 3-4 per day (now that I look back, switching decks so much wasn't quite the greatest move).
So when Dark Iron Skulker arrived I just sticked to Rogue and made from rank 5 to Legend in 105 games, at 62% overall w/rate. Here is what I faced:
25% Warlocks --> 68% w/r (after the Skulker was released it went up to 81% EDIT: but I guess it was a luck strike coz 81% is not realistic)
19% Hunters --> 45% w/r
14% Paladins --> 73% w/r
13% Druids --> 64% w/r
11% Warriors --> 33% w/r
9% Mages --> 60% w/r
4% Rogues --> 75% w/r
3% Priests --> 100% w/r
2% Shaman --> 100% w/r
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Mulligan and strategy guide:
Generally, you should start by playing control-like, removing every threat in the beginning. Then drop some minions, do some combos to deal with more threats and refill with Sprint. In the end you usually finish off with with combinations of weapon buffs, Blade Flurry and/or an attacking dude.
It is important to have something on the board so you can get a few attacks and target with the Oil. That's why Violet Teacher fits in this deck. For the same reason it's usually better to kill a minion by playing SI:7 Agent, and thus leaving a body on the board, than killing with weapon/spell. Another card that fulfils this role nicely is the newly added blackrock dwarf Dark Iron Skulker. His power can range from a mere Si:7 effect to a full board-swipe, while leaving behind a dude who can add up to tons of damage.
Avoid trading minions because you don't have many. Clear with weapons and spells and preserve your folk to attack the opponent.
In the end, the Violet Teacher can screw with your Tinker's Sharpsword Oil by creating a token that can't attack. Try to get her killed before this time comes, after she's left some students. By the way, a great defensive move when playing against Rogue is killing the tokens while leaving the Teacher alive.
Sometimes you have to be the aggressor. Paying a SI:7 Agent flat on turn 3 against a Druid for example can escalate in your favour if not answered. Against a Warrior, stab him from the very beginning because every damage counts (but will rarely be enough).
About some cards:
- Preparation combos nicely both with Sprint and Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, but don't be afraid to burn it to activate an Eviscerate or other removal, or even to Deadly Poison your dagger if you really, really need it. It is a card usually kept in the opening hand against faster decks, to gain Tempo.
- Eviscerate is mainly a removal that eventually is used to reach lethal, don't hesitate to kill that Knife Juggler!
- Deadly Poison your weapon to clear minions, reach lethal or feed your Blade Flurry.
- Blade Flurry is amazing! What can I say, it clears huge boards AND deals face damage. Although it feels awesome to cast the biggest blade possible and destroy everything, sometimes bursting your 1/2 Wicked Blade can also help clearing a board and gain you Tempo. Just remember you only have 2 and try to use one in a combo, because after you've attacked a few times with your minions, your main victory condition in the majority of games involves Tinker's Sharpsword Oil your 2 durability dagger and a dude, attack with both then play Blade Flurry.
- Fan of Knives for clearing tokens and using in combination with spell power Bloodmage Thalnos and Azure Drake.
- Bloodmage Thalnos is best at buffing AoE spells, but Eviscerate an Innervated 5/5 monster at early turns can be disruptive as well. It also combos nicely with Backstab.
- Sap Can be either used at killing time, by lifting that last taunt standing before your deadly assault, or it can be used to gain Tempo by Sapping costly targets like Sylvanas Windrunner, Druid of the Claw, Savannah Highmane. When the Voidcaller pulls Mal'Ganis, that's a good target! If it pulls Doomguard early while there is still a hand, he can go back as well. The best target of them all is surely Tirion Fordring, and Just forget about sapping stuff like Loatheb or Harrison Jones.
- Southsea Deckhand is great for activating Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, especially when you have no board. Sometimes he laughs as your last move, but occasionally you'll have the opportunity to oil him up early and score a hit, go for it! Against early-game decks such as Zoo, FaceHunter, or MidPaladin it's mostly used to kill some impertinent minion.
- Antique Healbot is here as a Meta tech solely because of FaceHunter, as I've been facing almost one of them in every 5 games. When not many Tards, I'll swap it for another Earthen Ring Farseer or a Shredder Dude.
- Emperor Thaurissan is a card that I've been testing in the deck and so far I'm convinced he performs well. He enables bigger and deadlier combos in the same way it does for Druid, but as you are constantly wiping the board, he frequently survives for more than a turn and wrecks havoc. He is best played after Sprint.
MULLIGANS
Warriors - your toughest challenge
Sprint
Violet
Drake
Sap
Eviscerate
SI:7
Play aggressively, kill the Armorsmith, hope he doesn't draw much armor. In case of a Grim Patron Warrior it'll be much easier, always eliminate the Warsong Commander and have some answer for the Frothing Berserker.
Hunters - your second worst nightmare
Backstab
Prep
SI:7
Evis
FoK
Haha Deckhand
If it happens to be a Midrange Hunter you're in advantage, but against Facers kill everything quickly or die soon. Pray for the Antique Healbot or, if feeling greedy, keep it in your mulligan.
Warlocks - they help you by killing themselves!
Backstab
Prep
Poison
Flurry
Evis
SI:7
Haha Deckhand
You are built to smash them!
Druids - fast, but slow start
Poison
Sap
Evis
Violet
Drake
SI:7
Kill him steadily. Play a minion early, then some big health minion he struggles to remove. Blade Flurry shines in this match as big threats mass removal. Sap can also gain enormous Tempo when bouncing Innervated minions or any creature that cost a lot to play (early on, even a Piloted Shredder may be a valid target).
Mages - any of them but freeze
Mulligan as if for Mech/Tempo Mage:
Backstab
Prep
Poison
Flurry
Evis
SI:7
Vs FreezeMage we're in disadvantage so gotta be quick. Against TempoMage, deal with her early threats and she'll run out of steam (always kill the Flamewaker). In case of a MechMage you're favoured as well, but will be reliant on a good Blade Flurry clear.
Paladins - better have dragons
Backstab
Poison
Flurry
FoK
SI:7
Violet
Evis
Against a standard Paladin, just frustrate his gameplan by doing what this deck does best: clearing his precious little minions, it should be kid's play. Even if is the trendy Drag-o-din you are still favoured, it will just fell more like a Druid game, except his combo will be lacking.
Shamans - endangered species
Backstab
Poison
Flurry
SI:7
FoK
Violet
Drake
Skulker
Easy one. They suffer gravely from your AoE effects.
Priests - poor priests
Poison
Sap
Evis
SI:7
Violet
Drake
Sprint
They're in a bad position here since there's not much they can do about our combo. They can heal up but it won't be enough. If they play Velen's Chosen on someone or heal an Injured Blademaster up, it might be a good idea to Sap. It's important to save a Blade Flurry for the end.
Rogues - where are they hiding?
Prep
Poison
Evis
Violet
Drake
Sprint
In the mirror match, whoever Sprints ahead has the upper hand. Leaving an enemy minion on board can be very dangerous because of Tinker's Sharpsword Oil. Beware of overextending your board into Blade Flurry.
That's all, enjoy! glhf
The Holy Gem!
Easier vs Grim Patron Warrior? Good joke.
If your opponent is not retarded you don't have a chance. No one plays the Warsong Commander without minions afterwards who have an immediate impact on the board.
I'm trying this deck right now and keep facing Warriors lol... rly not much fun. You don't have a slight chance vs either Control or Patron Warrior with this deck...
Exactly, Patron Warrior is way easier than Control Warrior.
Rogue is favoured vs PatronW mainly coz of its massive board-clears.
There's actually a team of very good players at TempoStorm constantly gathering data to produce an up-to-date statistical analysis of the meta-game, as one can check out here. If u take a look at their Matchup Spreadsheet, u'll see they consider Oil Rogue vs PatronW to be 75% in favour of Rogue.
Control Warrior, on the other hand, is hard as hell, but if nobody is retarded u always have a chance, so get rid of that looser's mentality and fight with conviction, coz victory is always a possibility.
Great deck I got from rank 7 to rank 4 with a big win streak. How can i fit Edwin VanCleef in the deck? I really love that card and was thinking of subbing deckhand for it.
Southsea Deckhand is surely an option. Other choices u can consider subbing him for could be, imo, Fan of Knives, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Antique Healbot or even Dark Iron Skulker. But in case u decided to cut an Oil, might just as well take out the Pirate.
Any tips vs. Mech Shaman? They just steam roll me and finish me with Fire Elemental / Dr. Boom if i don't draw the right cards,,,
MechShaman is harder than the traditional Midrange one. The trick is to avoid taking early damage by removing snowballing cards such as Cogmaster, Mechwarper or Whirling Zap-o-matic, but always have a plan in case an Annoy-o-Tron comes down. If u don't have the coin, try to mulligan for a 3-drop to play on turn 3, besides early removal. Blade Flurry is an amazing board clearer here, but try to save one to close the game with.
Kobold Geomancer if you need the Spell Damage or Loot Hoarder if you need the card draw.
I believe Skulker is a better deck. Milling Rogue is lower tier. Keep in mind that with all those face hunters, mill rogue doesn't really do anything against them
Spell damage is better against aggro, while card cycling is better vs control.
A 3rd option to sub Bloodmage Thalnos for is Shiv. It's very versatile, as it cycles through the deck right away, can help u clear a minion, can be used as a combo activator, has synergy with the Azure Drakes, counters the Counterspell plus it feeds the Violet Teacher, among other things.
Thx for deck
amazing deck, fun to play AND very effective.
Any upgrades for this deck for this season ?
Well, this season many faceHunters switched to hybridH, Zoos gave way to Handlocks, there's been an increase in TempoMeges plus a swarm of Patrons.
The hybridHunter is not as tough as faceH nor easy as MidrangeH, it's somewhere in between. We can actually get some value out of Sap here. We're slightly favoured against Handlock, but both TempoMage and PatronWarrior have the ability to snowball and burst us down, specially if we don't draw the right answers.
I haven't played Rogue this season nearly as much as last month, and lately I've been trying a list with a heavier mana-curve, but without the same success. There're some tweaks worth mentioning though:
Antique Healbot for a Loatheb seems a good idea, coz it's mostly against faceH, while Loatheb sticks better to the board.
Sludge Belcher is a card that can be useful against the PatronW and HybridH matchups.
Assassin's Blade is reasonably good against PatronW or TempoMage and very good vs Handlock, but terrible vs ControlW or any other Harrison Jones deck.
Southsea Deckhand's usefulness decreased a bit, with the fall of Zoo/FaceH and the increase in Mage/PatronW/Handlock.
I'll update the list once I reach some solid conclusion.
A really nice deck overall, I switched the earthern for another Healbot because I need more healing most of the time.
There is just something I do not understand in the mulligans. I see many times that it is recommended to keep a sprint or a prep but never a sprint AND a prep, on one hand what's the point of keeping a prep in early game if it's not to use it with sprint and on the other hand what's the point of having a sprint which you will not use until the seventh turn if prep isn't coming ?
Sprint is good vs slower matchups, like Priest n Warrior (although now that we have lots of Patrons it might not be worth keeping it against Warrior anymore) and vs the mirror matchup since card advantage is so important then.
On the other hand, Preparation is great against faster matchups coz it helps us clear more aggressively. But I was watching Firebat the other day n he said he keeps Prep petty much against everything, coz u always have a way to use it.
Now if u get both Sprint n Preparation on ur opening hand, it's usually worth keeping them yes, unless ur facing an aggro deck, in which case u'll need some faster answers than Sprint.
i dont have Dark Iron Skulker is there any replace for him ? :D
Oh yes, u can try Loatheb, Piloted Shredder, Edwin VanCleef, Sludge Belcher, Dr. Boom, Assassin's Blade... those are all fine.
I really like this deck, I've won a LOT more games than I thought I would without preparation, It's one of the main rogue cards I don't have so I can't really play rogue 'as well' most of the time, I subbed them both out for a Ragnaros and an Unstable ghoul (yes I know that's random) but so far it's been working quite well for me.
Any other suggestions perhaps for subbing the preparations out for something better? (until I can get them).
Well, u can surely get a feeling for the deck even with a few cards missing, but if u really enjoy playing this, then getting the Preparations will improve ur game dramatically.
I think both a 2nd Earthen Ring Farseer or a Piloted Shredder are preferable to the Unstable Ghoul, and since ur out of Preps, maybe cutting a Sprint would make the deck less clunky. Perhaps a Shiv could be useful to cycle better. But those are all less than optimal replacements. If ur serious about Rogue, plan to get the Preps, coz their flexibility and tempo gain is part of what makes the class so good.
Thank you for the advice, I'll work on fixing it and I am working on the preparations but I currently have no dust, thank you again.