Rogue is my favorite class, I've been playing for years but I don't think I've been able to beat Highlander Mage in this meta. I'm playing Stealth Galakrond rogue and it blows me up every single time. It seems like they have an answer to everything and can put out a ton of board presence at the mid to late game that Rogue can't deal with. Help!
It's not an easy matchup, but there many ways you can potentially beat them:
1) Early aggression: if you get a nice early curve and perhaps even drop an 8/8 or more Edwin on turn 4 they often don't have an answer so early. It is important to run 2 copies of Shadowstep though. Also for point (2) that follows 2) Try to outvalue them in the late game. Highlander Mage has a few big plays: DQ Alextrasza, Power of Creation (maybe played twice thanks to Tortollan Pilgrim), the box (which can go either way though) and a board clear with Reno. Try not to overextend before they have played Reno (don't play all your 0-mana cards into him), pray to have Flik in hand to answer Power of Creation and maybe Shadowstep him right afterwards to be ready to answer a big DQA turn and in the late game you can outvalue them with infinite Lackeys, 0-mana cards, the 3-mana put 2 legendaries on the board and so on...
I played Gala Rogue to diamond 3 last season. I mostly played the secret build, but also tried stealth and highlander builds. The stealth and highlander seemed to do better versus aggro, and secret does better against the control builds. I am playing secret rogue right now at diamond 6. Checking stats I won 6 out of 7 games against mages, and the one I lost he caught some really good rng off of the box and dragonqueen alex.
When playing against mage always keep in mind their boad wipes Zeph, Reno's, Box to avoid overcommitting to the board. With the secret build you get Hanar which can really mess with a control deck. Hanar has won me games against both mage and priest. The other thing I am always looking for against control decks is how to get burst lethal on my opponent. Try to get eviscerates and other spell damage from lackeys. You can also shadowstep Kronx for 10 damage in one turn.
Thanks for replying! Hard to be aggressive against them in some cases outside of Edwin. So I guess the idea is don't overextend and try to outvalue in the late game. I feel like I just get frozen and then they go face a lot of the time in the late game. I can try going for Crown more often instead of Wand. At least they're not super prevalent. Druid is a worse problem tbh, even Waste Warden isn't enough.
Thanks for replying! I'm not sure I really like the secret build anymore. I used to play it, too, but it seems underwhelming now. Yeah I normally try to dig for extra eviscerate and do the kronx shadowstep move when I can. I will try to remember to stock on burst more often and see how it goes. If it looks like I'm still tanking maybe I should swap back to secret or just straight galakrond.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi all
Rogue is my favorite class, I've been playing for years but I don't think I've been able to beat Highlander Mage in this meta. I'm playing Stealth Galakrond rogue and it blows me up every single time. It seems like they have an answer to everything and can put out a ton of board presence at the mid to late game that Rogue can't deal with. Help!
It's not an easy matchup, but there many ways you can potentially beat them:
1) Early aggression: if you get a nice early curve and perhaps even drop an 8/8 or more Edwin on turn 4 they often don't have an answer so early. It is important to run 2 copies of Shadowstep though. Also for point (2) that follows
2) Try to outvalue them in the late game. Highlander Mage has a few big plays: DQ Alextrasza, Power of Creation (maybe played twice thanks to Tortollan Pilgrim), the box (which can go either way though) and a board clear with Reno. Try not to overextend before they have played Reno (don't play all your 0-mana cards into him), pray to have Flik in hand to answer Power of Creation and maybe Shadowstep him right afterwards to be ready to answer a big DQA turn and in the late game you can outvalue them with infinite Lackeys, 0-mana cards, the 3-mana put 2 legendaries on the board and so on...
I played Gala Rogue to diamond 3 last season. I mostly played the secret build, but also tried stealth and highlander builds. The stealth and highlander seemed to do better versus aggro, and secret does better against the control builds. I am playing secret rogue right now at diamond 6. Checking stats I won 6 out of 7 games against mages, and the one I lost he caught some really good rng off of the box and dragonqueen alex.
When playing against mage always keep in mind their boad wipes Zeph, Reno's, Box to avoid overcommitting to the board. With the secret build you get Hanar which can really mess with a control deck. Hanar has won me games against both mage and priest. The other thing I am always looking for against control decks is how to get burst lethal on my opponent. Try to get eviscerates and other spell damage from lackeys. You can also shadowstep Kronx for 10 damage in one turn.
Thanks for replying! Hard to be aggressive against them in some cases outside of Edwin. So I guess the idea is don't overextend and try to outvalue in the late game. I feel like I just get frozen and then they go face a lot of the time in the late game. I can try going for Crown more often instead of Wand. At least they're not super prevalent. Druid is a worse problem tbh, even Waste Warden isn't enough.
Thanks for replying! I'm not sure I really like the secret build anymore. I used to play it, too, but it seems underwhelming now. Yeah I normally try to dig for extra eviscerate and do the kronx shadowstep move when I can. I will try to remember to stock on burst more often and see how it goes. If it looks like I'm still tanking maybe I should swap back to secret or just straight galakrond.