Hearthpwn

Hey everyone! I'm Whiplash and I recently played Malygos Rogue exclusively from rank 20 to top 200 Legend in Wild. I decided to make this guide because I didn't see anyone else playing this deck on my climb and people showed a lot of interest. It really is more viable than you think!

Overview

Malygos Rogue is a combo deck that aims to kill your opponent in one turn by reducing a lot of cheap damage spells to 0 or 1 mana with Emperor Thaurissan and then combining them with the +5 Spellpower buff on Malygos to do ridiculous amounts of damage. 

Mulligan Guide:

If you're against aggro Backstab, Swashburglar and Fan of Knives are the best keeps in general to fight for early board control, with Edwin VanCleef, Bloodmage Thalnos, Razorpetal Lasher, Eviscerate, Preparation, Sap and Shiv also being good in certain combinations against certain classes. For instance, Edwin is better with the Coin and Backstab, Sap is good against Shaman to bounce Flamewreathed Faceless, Fan of Knives is priority against Paladin to deal with recruits, etc. In order to beat really fast decks like Egg Druid you may need to combine Fan of Knives with spellpower and Preparation to deal with the wide boards as early as possible before they get buffed out of range. 

Against control decks you can be greedier, keeping Tomb Pillager, Azure Drake, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Emperor Thaurissan and even Malygos if the rest of your hand is good enough to justify it. You really need to find your combo as soon as possible, so keeping key cards off the mulligan can be powerful against control decks that don't put on as much pressure early. Azure Drake is an especially good keep against all the Priests on ladder, as having 4 attack and being a Dragon dodges a lot of Priest removal, whilst it's spell power makes it very powerful if left alive. 

Play Guide:

The key skills needed to piloting this deck are resource management and knowing when and how you need to set up your win condition. Don't be afraid to throw an Eviscerate at a problematic enemy minion or use a Sinister Strike to buff up an Edwin VanCleef. You need to survive first and foremost; just keep enough burn to combo with the Malygos. Often just a few Razorpetals will do if you have gotten in enough chip damage. Tomb Pillager can be great at softening up your opponent, as it's 5 attack means that just a couple of hits face can really reduce the amount of burn you need. Remember to play to your outs: sometimes you have to play with what you expect to draw in mind or you have to try to figure out a way to do enough damage without Malygos and/or Emperor Thaurissan. Many times I've killed my opponent in the later turns with just Bloodmage Thalnos and/or Azure Drake combined with a few burn spells thrown face. Over a couple of turns it really adds up, you just need to recognise when fighting for board has become futile. Most of this comes down to experience with it and you'll just have to play it a lot to learn what the deck can really do in tight situations. Just be careful you don't start wasting burn spells against a deck that has a lot of healing with cards like Reno Jackson or Alexstrasza. 

Other Cards Considered:

I considered many other staple cards when constructing this deck, such as SI:7 Agent, Shadow Strike, Barnes and Antique Healbot to name but a few. And all of those would be fine cards in this deck, but I found that every card in my decklist was performing extremely well and that any replacements would just lower the consistency of the deck.

Hopefully this guide will help you have success with this awesome deck on ladder, but if you want to see how I played it specifically, every match of my climb was streamed on my Twitch channel, so feel free to go over there and watch the vods or check out my stream. 

Cheers,

Whiplash