Looks like a combo deck, definitely a different approach to a Rogue deck than Spell Power, but you essentially want to keep any good cards to keep the game going in your hand, Novice, Kobold, SI7, Perditions, FoK, Shiv, Deadly Poison, Backstab, and Blade Flurry are all valid options depending on who you go up against, it's a toss-up that's based on decision making relative to the possible options that the enemy has. In general, those cards will give you a safe early game to play with.
The combo deck itself gives way to high damage Edwin plays and multiple draws from Gadgetzan, you basically stay ahead of the opponent and keep the board clear until you can find a Gadget to combo Prep/Backstab/Shiv and other spells with - then drop Edwin.
And then Edwin VanCleef gets silenced, hard removed or wins the game (75% of the time it ends badly).
Looks like a combo deck, definitely a different approach to a Rogue deck than Spell Power, but you essentially want to keep any good cards to keep the game going in your hand, Novice, Kobold, SI7, Perditions, FoK, Shiv, Deadly Poison, Backstab, and Blade Flurry are all valid options depending on who you go up against, it's a toss-up that's based on decision making relative to the possible options that the enemy has. In general, those cards will give you a safe early game to play with.
The combo deck itself gives way to high damage Edwin plays and multiple draws from Gadgetzan, you basically stay ahead of the opponent and keep the board clear until you can find a Gadget to combo Prep/Backstab/Shiv and other spells with - then drop Edwin.
And then Edwin VanCleef gets silenced, hard removed or wins the game (75% of the time it ends badly).
In prac
In practice, the games have not turned out that way. Watch Colento play, he uses this decklist and he is amazing.
The deck won't win all games, and often you are really low on life before you get your kill, but like all rogue builds, it has great value and there are many ways to win. Reminds me a lot of tendrils of agony decks in vintage magic. I've played every top deck over teh past month and have felt that this particular archetype is the most rewarding and challenging.
yeah vancleef often eats a silence or removal, as he should. still doesn't lose the game.
No real difference, the meta feels pretty stagnate from what I've seen and the common Druids & Warlock & Rogue decks are pretty abundant. The deck is about the same, with a snowball effect that takes place once the opponent has no clear for the spell damage minions.
All in all, it'll always be a solid deck that has answers to quite a few styles of play, but when it meets a good deck with high value cards to replenish hand count and beefy minions, you'll have your work cut out for you.
This can be remedied with TBK and Tinkmaster, when in doubt, add more legendary-based control. The deck is pretty solid all-in-all.
Just wanted to pop in and say I have really enjoyed using your deck so far! Granted I still am lacking a few legendaries (and for some reason all my opponents have multiples) but it still feels relatively strong.
Also wanted to express my interest in your thought process on any future changes - if you ever feel like posting a bit of a "mind-dump" on any strategy/changes/meta you're pondering about the deck. I eagerly await it and most definitely have this thread bookmarked.
There's always ideas I have running around my head, some of them fall flat on their face (Rogue Murloc for example), but it's always documented and revisited. You never know when something might come in handy.
As for the deck, I think it's sitting at an incredibly comfortable spot. I ended up grabbing my last two Blade Flurry so I have the clear I wanted as well as a good foundation for direct damage. What I may want to explore next is a hyper-aggressive variant of Rogue, and maybe there is some space for Spell Damage in it. The most common question that often comes about when playing with any Spell Damage is finding the right amount of Spell Damage minions. Since these minions are nothing more than a vanilla monster if we take away the effect, we would find their stats lackluster more often than not, Dalaran Mage often gets the boot in favor of Ogre and Kobold, but sometimes I feel Kobold is much too weak and you don't need much more than Thalnos, Ogre, and Azure. Just something to think about.
Not to mention the flak I get over Headcrack, but it's personally one of my favorite cards so I'm not going to remove it from the list. My advice is to keep a close eye on its performance and if you dislike it, swap it immediately for something else that helps push a game to close out.
The other issue I need to look into is the nerf to Dark Iron Dwarf and Novice Engineer, it's a very slight one as it lasts only until the end of the turn for Dwarf, but I need to be wary of their uses regardless. This deck has always had a problem with control and heavy hitters, add that to the higher potential of a wiped board of Spell Damage minions and you have yourself a recipe for a loss. My first thought is to shove Legendaries in - Sylvanas, Leeroy, Tinkmaster, The Black Knight, but this approach is the brainless method and not all too classy. I want to keep this deck list from being half orange and an intermediary friendly step into the forays of spell-based play.
In short, glad you enjoy the deck, keep an eye on Dark Iron + Novice post-nerf, if you have problems throw in more legendaries, you might want to reconsider the amount of Spell Damage minions sometimes, I'm looking into aggressive rogue decks at the moment cause they're probably the most viable of rush decks now.
Rogue is by far my most enjoyed class, and am looking forward to any additional decks that you put out pertaining to them! I'll definitely be posting in those threads, if you end up creating a new one.
Also I understand where you're coming from with the 'half-orange deck' legendary perspective. At a certain point the legendaries become more and more of a crutch, and ultimately take away any semblance of uniqueness, originality, and independent strategy of a deck.
I'll keep tweaking this deck in my own personal play, and if I found anything profound I'll post it here or PM you (Doubt that will happen, but here's hoping).
I'm a big fan of Shiv in similar play over the Novice, I've actually been toying around with Ancient Mage over Dark Iron - he's not great on paper but in play I've actually had a good amount of luck with him.
I had considered Ancient Mage, but thought it might be too slow / gimmicky. Anyone able to report success/failure?
he definitely works. I ran him for a few days post patch in place of Dark Iron Dwarf. the hardest thing with him is getting the two minions on the board to play him AND have enough mana to cast a spell that turn. Otherwise you are playing him to just get +1 SP and that is not good value. Because of feeling like I needed to hold onto him until I had enough board control to make him useful he usually went into late game and ended up feeling too slow to me. That's the reason I removed him from my deck.
That was my fear. I didn't really see being able to stick 2 minions, and then play the Mage with enough mana to cast meaningful amounts of spells. Though shadowstep mage combo is kinda funny.
Master of Disguise is far too slow, if you have control of the board, you're going to lose everything to board wipes, concealing a 4 health Spell Damage minion means you already lose that attack each turn besides dying to conventional clear.
It forces your momentum to slow down and effectively removes the minion from play if you plan to keep it stealthed, she just needs her stats moved around until we can find a use for her as I've tried her in a variety of situations where 4 mana is too high.
My testing has come up with similar results. Master of Disguise is just too slow. I agree stealthing something while you blow it up larger just takes to long. I have had luck with Conceal on occasion, but mostly it was just to get through the next turn after I stuck a threat.
I've got enough cash to craft my first legendary. I'm running a similar rogue deck that is much more budget-y.... would you recommend crafting a Rag to use in this, as well as for his general utility in other decks?
And then Edwin VanCleef gets silenced, hard removed or wins the game (75% of the time it ends badly).
In practice, the games have not turned out that way. Watch Colento play, he uses this decklist and he is amazing.
The deck won't win all games, and often you are really low on life before you get your kill, but like all rogue builds, it has great value and there are many ways to win. Reminds me a lot of tendrils of agony decks in vintage magic. I've played every top deck over teh past month and have felt that this particular archetype is the most rewarding and challenging.
yeah vancleef often eats a silence or removal, as he should. still doesn't lose the game.
came back to check on this deck how is it doing in the current meta now?
No real difference, the meta feels pretty stagnate from what I've seen and the common Druids & Warlock & Rogue decks are pretty abundant. The deck is about the same, with a snowball effect that takes place once the opponent has no clear for the spell damage minions.
All in all, it'll always be a solid deck that has answers to quite a few styles of play, but when it meets a good deck with high value cards to replenish hand count and beefy minions, you'll have your work cut out for you.
This can be remedied with TBK and Tinkmaster, when in doubt, add more legendary-based control. The deck is pretty solid all-in-all.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
Howdy Aishi!
Just wanted to pop in and say I have really enjoyed using your deck so far! Granted I still am lacking a few legendaries (and for some reason all my opponents have multiples) but it still feels relatively strong.
Also wanted to express my interest in your thought process on any future changes - if you ever feel like posting a bit of a "mind-dump" on any strategy/changes/meta you're pondering about the deck. I eagerly await it and most definitely have this thread bookmarked.
Thanks for your time investment Aishi :D
(b' ')b
There's always ideas I have running around my head, some of them fall flat on their face (Rogue Murloc for example), but it's always documented and revisited. You never know when something might come in handy.
As for the deck, I think it's sitting at an incredibly comfortable spot. I ended up grabbing my last two Blade Flurry so I have the clear I wanted as well as a good foundation for direct damage. What I may want to explore next is a hyper-aggressive variant of Rogue, and maybe there is some space for Spell Damage in it. The most common question that often comes about when playing with any Spell Damage is finding the right amount of Spell Damage minions. Since these minions are nothing more than a vanilla monster if we take away the effect, we would find their stats lackluster more often than not, Dalaran Mage often gets the boot in favor of Ogre and Kobold, but sometimes I feel Kobold is much too weak and you don't need much more than Thalnos, Ogre, and Azure. Just something to think about.
Not to mention the flak I get over Headcrack, but it's personally one of my favorite cards so I'm not going to remove it from the list. My advice is to keep a close eye on its performance and if you dislike it, swap it immediately for something else that helps push a game to close out.
The other issue I need to look into is the nerf to Dark Iron Dwarf and Novice Engineer, it's a very slight one as it lasts only until the end of the turn for Dwarf, but I need to be wary of their uses regardless. This deck has always had a problem with control and heavy hitters, add that to the higher potential of a wiped board of Spell Damage minions and you have yourself a recipe for a loss. My first thought is to shove Legendaries in - Sylvanas, Leeroy, Tinkmaster, The Black Knight, but this approach is the brainless method and not all too classy. I want to keep this deck list from being half orange and an intermediary friendly step into the forays of spell-based play.
In short, glad you enjoy the deck, keep an eye on Dark Iron + Novice post-nerf, if you have problems throw in more legendaries, you might want to reconsider the amount of Spell Damage minions sometimes, I'm looking into aggressive rogue decks at the moment cause they're probably the most viable of rush decks now.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
Rogue is by far my most enjoyed class, and am looking forward to any additional decks that you put out pertaining to them! I'll definitely be posting in those threads, if you end up creating a new one.
Also I understand where you're coming from with the 'half-orange deck' legendary perspective. At a certain point the legendaries become more and more of a crutch, and ultimately take away any semblance of uniqueness, originality, and independent strategy of a deck.
I'll keep tweaking this deck in my own personal play, and if I found anything profound I'll post it here or PM you (Doubt that will happen, but here's hoping).
Post nerf, do you think you sub in shiv over Novice? Same damage, same likelihood to trade, draws a card and benefits from SP.
It's a possible thought, but the issue is that Novice is still a minion, and can preemptively stay on the field.
You wouldn't Shiv your opponent on an empty field, for example.
I would personally split the Novice x2 into one Shiv, one Novice, and see how it plays.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
I'm a big fan of Shiv in similar play over the Novice, I've actually been toying around with Ancient Mage over Dark Iron - he's not great on paper but in play I've actually had a good amount of luck with him.
I've been running this slight variation. Doing pretty well.
I had considered Ancient Mage, but thought it might be too slow / gimmicky. Anyone able to report success/failure?
he definitely works. I ran him for a few days post patch in place of Dark Iron Dwarf. the hardest thing with him is getting the two minions on the board to play him AND have enough mana to cast a spell that turn. Otherwise you are playing him to just get +1 SP and that is not good value. Because of feeling like I needed to hold onto him until I had enough board control to make him useful he usually went into late game and ended up feeling too slow to me. That's the reason I removed him from my deck.
That was my fear. I didn't really see being able to stick 2 minions, and then play the Mage with enough mana to cast meaningful amounts of spells. Though shadowstep mage combo is kinda funny.
Master of Disguise is far too slow, if you have control of the board, you're going to lose everything to board wipes, concealing a 4 health Spell Damage minion means you already lose that attack each turn besides dying to conventional clear.
It forces your momentum to slow down and effectively removes the minion from play if you plan to keep it stealthed, she just needs her stats moved around until we can find a use for her as I've tried her in a variety of situations where 4 mana is too high.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
My testing has come up with similar results. Master of Disguise is just too slow. I agree stealthing something while you blow it up larger just takes to long. I have had luck with Conceal on occasion, but mostly it was just to get through the next turn after I stuck a threat.
I've got enough cash to craft my first legendary. I'm running a similar rogue deck that is much more budget-y.... would you recommend crafting a Rag to use in this, as well as for his general utility in other decks?
Rag is a solid first legend to craft for any deck
blowing 1600 dust is nerve wracking!!
The same feeling the opponent gets when you drop Ragnaros on the board, I'm sure.
Ragnaros is perfect for classes that lose steam late game and need to close it out - a Rogue favorite.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post