Hearthpwn

Our Sherazin Un’Goro Miracle Rogue deck list guide will let you learn a thing or two about one of the most difficult decks in Hearthstone’s history.

Introduction

Everyone who plays Hearthstone for a while knows about this deck. It was played 3 years ago, a year ago, it’s played now and it will probably be played as long as Gadgetzan Auctioneer is in the game. Even though every expansion Rogue seems to be in a terrible position after the initial reviews, the class finds its ways to raise to the top (or at least close). After the last Standard rotation, the deck has lost nearly all its mid game – Tomb Pillager and Azure Drake were vital to the deck’s staying power. It also lost the Conceal, which made Auctioneer much stronger and allowed Rogue to play vulnerable, snowball cards without being afraid that they will die right away.

But those changes didn’t kill Rogue. As it happens, multiple pro players have hit high Legend ranks with the new Rogue lists already. The one featured in this guide is a list Eloise used to hit #1 Legend on Chinese server. She credits cross7224 (Japanese pro player) as the original creator.

Sherazin Un’Goro Miracle Mulligan Strategy & Guide

I’ll divide the mulligan section into two – against fast decks and against slow decks. Fast decks are generally the Aggro decks (e.g. Pirate Warrior) or high tempo Midrange decks (e.g. Midrange Hunter). Slow decks are slower Midrange and Control decks.

VS FAST DECKS

Higher Priority (keep every time):

• Backstab – Absolutely necessary against Aggro, it’s a nice tempo removal and tempo is exactly what you need early in the game in faster matchups.
• Swashburglar – The only Pirate the deck runs. You want to play it to summon Patches the Pirate from your deck, thinning your deck a bit and making your early game trades easier. 2x 1/1 for 1 mana is okay, but when one part has Charge and another gives you a card, it’s even better.
• Eviscerate – Early removal, it will come handy when dealing with the early game threats your opponent might drop. Aggro deck teched in Golakka Crawler and killed your Pirate? Evis it. Pirate Warrior drops Frothing Berserker? Evis it. Hunter rolls Misha from Animal Companion? Evis it.
• Razorpetal Lasher – An alternative to turn 2 Hero Power if you have no good target to hit. 2/2 body can trade into something in the early game and the 1 damage for 1 spell is pretty flexible. You can also dagger on turn 2 and use Lasher + spell on turn 3 (you can kill a 2 health target right away with that combo).
• SI:7 Agent – Great card against Aggro. Even if you aren’t on the Coin, it’s quite easy to get a cheap spell in this deck, so you should be able to combo it quite consistently. And it can swing the early game tempo quite well.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met):

• Counterfeit Coin – If you have a good use for it. E.g. if you start with SI:7, but you go first. Or if you have Edwin VanCleef in your hand.
• Preparation + Fan of Knives – Prep alone might be not good enough in Aggro matchups, and Fan of Knives is great, but costs 3 mana. When you combo those two, it’s basically a 0 mana for 1 AoE damage, which is an amazing tempo card (you use 2 cards, but you draw one).
• Bloodmage Thalnos – With Backstab if your opponent plays some 3-4 health minions in the early game – you can tempo out with Thalnos + Backstab (and possibly dagger stab for 4 health minions).
• Edwin VanCleef – On Coin – you can drop a 4/4 on turn 2, which is nice. Even better with let’s say Prep + another spell or at least Backstab.

VS SLOW DECKS

Higher Priority (keep every time):

• Swashburglar – It’s not that necessary against slower decks, but you want to play it as soon as possible to get Patches out of your deck and not draw it. Also, it’s not like you have anything better to do on turn 1.
• Razorpetal Lasher – 2-drop, you might get some early trade or start pushing for the damage early. You also start filling your hand with cheap spells, which are really necessary for the Auctioneer turn.
• Edwin VanCleef – Even though you might not be able to play it right away, with all the cheap spells, spell generators etc. you should be easily able to make it big around turn 4-5. So it’s still worth it to keep it in the opening hand.
• Mimic Pod – Very slow, but if you’re absolutely sure that you play against Control, it’s a great keep. There are a lot of good outcomes. Getting a cheap spell like Prep makes your Auctioneer turn much better. Getting Edwin means that you can put two of them one after the other. And getting Sherazin is like a free win, after you drop them both every time you play 4 or more cards you’ll get 2x 5/3 for free.
• Sherazin, Corpse Flower – Amazing card in the slow matchup. After you play it, you should be able to ressurrect it at least 4-5 times more. You get a free 5/3 on every big turn, even though it’s not that hard to remove, at some point your opponent will have no way to do it + you have other big threats he needs to worry about.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met):

• Gadgetzan Auctioneer – I know that it’s risky, but if you’re really sure that you face a slow matchup, keeping Auctioneer is great. I had some games with a hand full of cheap spells and I’ve lost it because of no Auctioneer.
• Vilespine Slayer – With Coin or Counterfeit Coin. Turn 4 Coin + Vilespine Slayer is amazing tempo move against any big minion. Especially useful against decks like slow Druid (which can Innervate something bigger) or Handlock (Mountain Giant/Twilight Drake).

Sherazin Un’Goro Miracle Rogue Play Strategy

In general, the deck didn’t change that much. However, instead of the early snowball potential the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan version had, this one relies more on the mid/late game swing turns. The early game is very weak, you’re just trying to survive and get enough fuel for the cards. You have no big Questing Adventurer + Conceal snowball turns, although admittedly there are builds that still use Questing (it’s great with all the cheap cards to buff it).

The deck starts really slowly (the only high tempo turn you can make early is a big Edwin) and really takes off in the mid game. If everything goes right, you start drawing cards, reviving your Sherazing every turn, dropping cheap/free 8/8’s etc.

Vs Aggro

Aggro matchups are hardest. Without almost any defensive tools, Miracle Rogue was always countered by one thing – face rush. And so, Pirate Warrior is one of the hardest matchup, so is something like an Aggro Druid. Those matchups are of course winnable, but don’t expect to have too high win rate against those decks.

Your highest priority in those matchup is killing everything and not taking too many damage while doing that. Think about long-term survivability. Try to trade into everything – leaving that 2/3 minion might not matter right away, but after 3 or 4 turns the damage is going to stack. At the same time, your removals are limited. You must really think about future turns when using a removal like Eviscerate. If you’re only holding one, if you kill that 2/3 minion, you don’t take more damage from it. But at the same time, you might not have an answer for a next, bigger minion. Those kind of decisions are hardest. Try to utilize your Hero Power to deal chip damage to the minions. Stabbing something hurts, but in the long run you protect your life total.

Swashburglar is a great early game drop, because it’s a very high tempo move – 2 bodies, 1 has charge and you get an extra card. Razorpetal Lasher is also an okay drop – even if it doesn’t trade well, you can still finish a minion off with the spell or dagger.

One of the best early game moves is a big Edwin VanCleef. Try to get it as big as possible. Even using Preparation or Coin for nothing, just to get +2/+2, might be a good idea. Having a 8/8 or 10/10 around turn 3-4 can win you the game, because now instead of trading you just start racing them. If you combine it with some removals or Sap, you should win that race quite easily – you usually put them on a 3 turn clock and they can’t really get rid of the big body (since Aggro decks don’t run big removals).

When it comes to Aggro matchups, you often start turning it around on turn 4-5. Vilespine Slayer is an amazing tempo card. Sure, it’s not great against board floods, but even Aggro decks can drop something big on t4-t5. Let’s say Pirate Warrior – he drops Naga Corsair on t4 and you kill it while putting a 3/4 on the board. It’s even better against Druid with Bittertide Hydra – one hit from that thing might just kill you.

If you didn’t take too much damage, try to play Gadgetzan Auctioneer as soon as possible. While it’s not your main win condition in these matchups, it might still act like a quasi-Taunt and cycling a few cards is good, because playing more spells brings you closer to big Arcane Giants. If you’re not dead at this point, try dropping a Giant or two to threaten closing up the game. At this point your opponent should be running out of cards and you should actually start drawing more and more. At that point of the game it often depends on how well your opponent top decks. You generally should be pretty low – if he gets more “slow” minions, then you win. If they get their burn – you probably lose.

Vs Control

Games versus slower decks are easier to win, but at the same time harder to play correctly. While the early game is really straightforward, you have A LOT of decision-making in the mid and late game. Early game you don’t really have to do much. Of course, if you have your Pirate, you play it. Same goes for the Razorpetal Lasher. But to be fair, you shouldn’t be under that much pressure until mid game, so you can take it slow.

Going for a huge Edwin is much more risky vs slow decks. I would definitely not go all-in on the Edwin. Getting it to 6/6 or maybe 8/8 if you can do that without committing too many resources is fine, but more than that is just not necessary. If your opponent can’t kill it, 8/8 will be enough to keep their attention or even kill them. And if they can kill it, you would have just wasted cheap stuff you can play with Auctioneer. That’s right – you generally want to save your Counterfeit Coins, Preparations, Backstabs, Razorpetals (the 1 mana spells from Razorleaf) etc. for your Auctioneer turn. Since you can’t Conceal it, you have to go all-in on a single turn. It won’t likely survive more than one, so you plan to draw at least 5-6 cards – the more the better! 

Sherazin, Corpse Flower is MVP in slower matchups. On the Auctioneer turn and most likely every turn after, you can easily play 4+ cards to bring it back to life. That’s your game plan anyway, so you basically bring out a free 5/3 every turn. The card gets tons of tempo over the whole game. The only way to realistically deal with it are cards like Hex or Polymorph – you might want to try to bait those with a big Edwin first (trust me, Sherazin is worth more in the long run than an 8/8).

Tempo swing turns are key against Control decks. You want to commit, but not overcommit. Sherazin is really awesome for this kind of gameplay. Let’s say that you play Fan, Swashburglar, SI:7 and Backstab. Normally that turn wouldn’t put on too much pressure, but on top of the 3/3 and 1/1 you also get 5/3. Now, your opponent can AoE it, but you didn’t really commit too much, so you don’t mind. If they decide to use a single removal on Sherazin every turn, that’s fine, they will run out of those eventually. You try to play enough stuff to revive Sherazin every turn. Sometimes even playing that extra Coin or 1 damage to the face without getting value out of those is good enough if you revive the 5/3. Imagine that the coin you’ve “wasted” is a 0 mana 5/3 – would you play it? Of course you would!

Arcane Giants are interesting. 0 mana 8/8 is never bad, but first you need to get there. Early in the game they’re dead cards – they’re unplayable until you get them down to at least 5-6 mana. Even then they’re pretty slow. Try to think about them as a tempo tool, unless you have nothing else to do, try to drop them for free while doing something else. Dropping a single Giant and passing your turn is very easy to answer. Reviving Sherazin, playing another minion and then dropping Giants is much harder. At the same time, you DON’T want to go for a big turn with 2x Arcane Giant unless you’re completely sure that they’re out of big AoEs (or you face a matchup that simply doesn’t play one – e.g. Elemental Shaman has no board wipe, even Volcano is not enough). 

Plan your Auctioneer turns. You don’t expect them to survive, so you need to get all the draws upfront. You want to drop him on 6 only if you have multiple 0 mana spells to go with it. You plan to draw at least 5 cards, because you really need that cycle. If you have two Auctioneers, you can go lighter on the first one and bait a removal at the same time.

Another amazing card in slow matchups is Vilespine Slayer. There are two best uses for the card. First is to deal with their first midrange threats before you go into your power turns. Let’s say they drop some 5/5 minion. If you don’t kill it, you might fall behind before you reach the peak of your power and that’s not good, it will be hard to come back. So kill it with Vilespine and call it a day. Another use is as a supplementary card on your tempo turn. Play 2-3 minions and kill their biggest guy with Vilespine Slayer. The tempo gain from killing a big drop with this guy is insane. Opponents might have to spend their whole turn to play the big guy and you kill it for 5 mana while playing a 3/4 at the same time (so basically you kill it for 2 mana and play a 3 mana 3/4).

The basic win condition is to re-flood the board turn after turn so eventually your opponent runs out of ways to deal with it. Hopefully, it happens before you run out of cards – then you win. If your opponent can somehow have enough steam to keep up with you until you run out of cards, you lose. There is rarely “in between”, maybe against something like a Taunt Warrior that can kill you with the 8 damage Hero Power.

General Tips

• Try to get the most clunky cards out of your hand first if you don’t need to tempo out right away. Especially in slower matchups, having full hand on Auctioneer turn is a serious problem. It might be hard to play all the Fan of Knives or Mimic Pod during the Auctioneer turn, because not only they are expensive, but they also draw on top of the Auctioneer that already draws. After FoK you end up with +1 card and after Mimic Pod with +2. Try to not overdraw.
• After you drop Sherazin, Corpse Flower, try to revive him every turn if possible. Of course, don’t waste cards just to do that. For example, the common play is to drop Sherazin on turn 4, it will usually die, you ignore it on turn 5 and then play Auctioneer with a bunch of Coins, Preps and cheap stuff on turn 6 and revive him. After that, unless you really need to play something like Vilespine Slayer that will take biggest part of your turn, try to get 4 cards off every turn. It’s really easy with all the cheap stuff. 4 is usually the perfect number, because you put pressure on the board, but you don’t overcommit.
• I don’t know whether it’s a bug or not, but if you get out Vilespine Slayer with combo and you have a dormant Sherazin on the board, you can target it. But don’t worry, it won’t die, the card just won’t have any effect!
• When you go to play Arcane Giant, you can try to get it as cheap as possible. 0 mana spells actually reduce it mana cost without costing you anything, while 1 mana spells reduce the cost if you plan to play two on the same turn. Let’s say you have 7 mana and you have two 8 mana Giants. You can play something like Coin + Prep + Eviscerate + Hallucination + Razorpetal and then get out both of them. I know that it’s a pretty simple math, but it’s sometimes that easy to play 4-5 cheap spells on a single turn that you might not expect to get the Giants out.

Sherazin Miracle Rogue Card Substitutions

Sadly, most of the expensive cards in this list can’t be replaced easily. I’ll still try to provide the best possible budget replacements, but you need to understand that the deck’s power might suffer a lot then.

• Bloodmage Thalnos – It’s probably the least required Legend on the list. However, it’s still quite powerful, as it’s your only source of Spell Damage in the deck. The difference between 1 and 2 damage Fan of Knives might be crucial sometimes. Thalnos + Backstab + Evis is also a nice way to kill 8 health minion easily, for just 4 mana. But to be fair, the card isn’t 100% necessary. A few solid replacements are: Shadowstep (works great with Vilespine Slayer), second Mimic Pod (great in slow matchups, but might get clunky in faster ones) or Shaku, the Collector. You can also try another tech like Envenom Weapon.
• Edwin VanCleef – This is an Aggro killer if you can get out a big one early. It’s also another big threat for the slow matchups. You can make it 8/8 so easily. However, if you don’t have it, you can try playing Shaku, the Collector or a second SI:7 Agent as a budget option.
• Sherazin, Corpse Flower – I don’t think this card can be replaced. It covers the deck’s mid game, which is pretty weak in the current Standard rotation. It’s also a huge win condition in the slower matchups, I would lose so many matches if I didn’t have it. The card is what makes the deck powerful right now.
• Vilespine Slayer – Similarly to Sherazin, the card is so crucial for the deck’s mid game. But it’s an Epic and if you didn’t open it and don’t feel like crafting, you can try adding second Sap or Burgly Bully. DON’T add Assassinate, it’s a really slow card and won’t help your mid game too much.
• If you don’t have Karazhan, you can replace Swashburglar with Southsea Deckhand – it’s worse, but you can’t really help that. It’s still pretty strong for the faster matchups, because once you equip the weapon it’s a 2/1 with Charge for 1 (nice tempo) and it summons Patches. Then, Arcane Giants can be switched out for the Questing Adventurers. The list with Adventures would have a bit different strategy – you get more snowball potential, but you don’t get that guaranteed cheap 8/8 in the late game. Both approaches make some sense, you just need to adjust your play style.

Closing

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Good luck on the ladder and until next time!