I've been working on a tempo-oriented Rogue deck that has a distinctly different approach and feel to most of the popular Rogue decks out there. I am by no means a high level player, currently at level 10 and climbing, but I have been finding a lot of success and enjoyment with it thus far. I'm currently working on the guide, although it is far from finished. I just wanted to take some time to share this deck.
And to answer the inevitable question, here's an explanation of why I use Pit Snake:
Pit Snake is considered trash-tier by most players. The basic argument is as follows: "It only has 1 health and no immediate effect on the board, meaning that it can be easily removed with a hero power and is a waste of a card." I have found this to be an entirely inaccurate description of its potential.
This is a tempo deck. They key difference between this card and Patient Assassin is its mana cost: at 1 mana it is cheaper to play Pit Snake than it is to remove it. This is a win from your perspective. On top of this it trades with nearly every early minion in the early game, including valuable utility minions like Armorsmith and Northshire Cleric. It is also one of the few 1-drops in the game that can also contest Zombie Chow.
The second benefit of the card in the later stages of the game is that it must be dealt with because it can single-handedly wipe out the most valuable of cards. The key is to play this card preemptively before a crucial turn when your opponent would like to develop a large minion. Instead (s)he must now once again play reactively, which is where you want them.
Why do you use Black Knight ? For tempo Dr.Boom is far superior.
He doesn't actually fit very well. The problem with Dr. Boom is that he actually gives your opponent more time to respond and is difficult to play with anything else on the same turn. My goal is to have multiple small or medium minions on the board, because it gives me more flexibility in how to trade efficiently. Also, since much of the removal is in the form of spells you want to have minions cheap enough to play alongside them. Finally nothing can be BGH'd in the deck; I figure I won't give them the chance to reverse tempo with that.
By comparison TBK is essentially a removal spell and minion in one, justifying his higher cost since he's doing the work of two cards for me.
Eh for people saying Pit Snake is garbage I tend to disagree heavily with this. What I can agree with is Sir Finley Mrrgglton is garbage on early turns and the only way I could see use of him is in the later stages of the game when Warlock/Hunter/Heal hero power could become slightly better.
For Pit Snake what it does is it causes your opponent to have really bad turns to increase tempo and if used correctly it can delay very crucial turns for certain classes (turn 5 Druid, turn 7 Druid, and also since its 1 mana it helps curve out better but the down side to this card is if you have it turn 1 it can be kind of rough and I don't think it will impact much at all. I prefer the card used to delay turns kind of like Mirror Entity for mages trying to activate Mad Scientist on the big turns from certain classes. I personally like this deck and usually when I create Rogue decks I create something really similar to this as I'm pretty much thinking the same cards minus Bloodmage Thalnos and Pit Snake. I really love Rogue but I just can't find the right deck that is just better than other classes in general.
...when I create Rogue decks I create something really similar to this as I'm pretty much thinking the same cards minus Bloodmage Thalnos and Pit Snake. I really love Rogue but I just can't find the right deck that is just better than other classes in general.
I'm debating on Bloodmage Thalnos in some ways. One problem I've run into a few times is that I'm just short of having enough threats a few games. The only non-situational minion with 4+ attack is the Piloted Shredder; Edwin VanCleef, Dark Iron Skulker, and The Black Knight require special conditions to play. So even though Thalnos' utility for cycling and spell damage is great, I'm thinking I might be trying something else in his place. A Tomb Pillager might do the trick, or even potentially an Anubisath Sentinel.
Sir Finley Mrrggltonseem out of place here ,because dagger is a good tempo heropower.
He's out of place on the first turn. I usually use him some time around turn 5-6, because honestly if I've used my hero power more than once before then it means something is going wrong. The idea is that as the game goes on the Rogue hero power loses its relative value as a tempo tool.
There are not enough taunt minions for TBK to work consistently.Prove me wrong though if it is possible, becauae I like him.
Almost all non-aggro decks run at least one taunt target. Most decks (including this one) run Sludge Belcher or taunt-activators like Houndmaster or Defender of Argus. Also with Paladins being so popular Tirion Fordring is fairly common.
The other issue is that multiple large taunt minions will wear this deck down too much. Ideally the first taunt dies to spells/battlecries and a small trade. The second you have to trade against. By the third you are beginning to run low on options; even with a lot of card draw, you can actually just run out of minions to play with this deck. So he's insurance against that sort of delaying playstyle, and the only match up where he's dead is pure aggro, and this deck does well enough against those anyway.
Edit: I wanted to clarify that I'm not 100% on TBK. I'm explaining my reasoning for it, but I could entirely end up wrong.
Small update on deck, I dropped one Loot Hoarder for Arch-Thief Rafaam. That might sound a little strange, but let me explain.
The problem was that I was cycling through my whole deck but the high-control decks that are all the rage nowadays would simply remove everything I put on the board until I died to fatigue. I tried adding in a few more midrange minions like Tomb Pillager, but that didn't really do it. I really couldn't make use of the extra coins in this deck, either. I tried things like Loatheb thinking if I could just stall that crucial turn I could finish it, but Reno Jackson says "hi." I even tried Anub'arak, thinking maybe I just needed a persistent threat, but he was just auto-Entomb fodder.
Arch-Thief Rafaam has dodged all these downsides. He gives me a single extremely high-value card that lets me close out the game. It's usually Lantern of Power, but I have used Mirror of Doom on a few occasions when I know my opponent is out of AoE. Sure he can be removed easily, but he's already given me what I want. In fact, if he sticks on the board I consider it a boon.
I'm considering adding Dr. Boom since if you have one BGH target, might as well add in the doctor. That said, he still doesn't flow very well with the deck so it's not a sure thing.
I've been working on a tempo-oriented Rogue deck that has a distinctly different approach and feel to most of the popular Rogue decks out there. I am by no means a high level player, currently at level 10 and climbing, but I have been finding a lot of success and enjoyment with it thus far. I'm currently working on the guide, although it is far from finished. I just wanted to take some time to share this deck.
And to answer the inevitable question, here's an explanation of why I use Pit Snake:
Pit Snake is considered trash-tier by most players. The basic argument is as follows: "It only has 1 health and no immediate effect on the board, meaning that it can be easily removed with a hero power and is a waste of a card." I have found this to be an entirely inaccurate description of its potential.
This is a tempo deck. They key difference between this card and Patient Assassin is its mana cost: at 1 mana it is cheaper to play Pit Snake than it is to remove it. This is a win from your perspective. On top of this it trades with nearly every early minion in the early game, including valuable utility minions like Armorsmith and Northshire Cleric. It is also one of the few 1-drops in the game that can also contest Zombie Chow.
The second benefit of the card in the later stages of the game is that it must be dealt with because it can single-handedly wipe out the most valuable of cards. The key is to play this card preemptively before a crucial turn when your opponent would like to develop a large minion. Instead (s)he must now once again play reactively, which is where you want them.
Why do you use Black Knight ? For tempo Dr.Boom is far superior.
By comparison TBK is essentially a removal spell and minion in one, justifying his higher cost since he's doing the work of two cards for me.
There are not enough taunt minions for TBK to work consistently.Prove me wrong though if it is possible, becauae I like him.
Sir Finley Mrrggltonseem out of place here ,because dagger is a good tempo heropower.
Eh for people saying Pit Snake is garbage I tend to disagree heavily with this. What I can agree with is Sir Finley Mrrgglton is garbage on early turns and the only way I could see use of him is in the later stages of the game when Warlock/Hunter/Heal hero power could become slightly better.
For Pit Snake what it does is it causes your opponent to have really bad turns to increase tempo and if used correctly it can delay very crucial turns for certain classes (turn 5 Druid, turn 7 Druid, and also since its 1 mana it helps curve out better but the down side to this card is if you have it turn 1 it can be kind of rough and I don't think it will impact much at all. I prefer the card used to delay turns kind of like Mirror Entity for mages trying to activate Mad Scientist on the big turns from certain classes. I personally like this deck and usually when I create Rogue decks I create something really similar to this as I'm pretty much thinking the same cards minus Bloodmage Thalnos and Pit Snake. I really love Rogue but I just can't find the right deck that is just better than other classes in general.
Teeq 1 , Team Liquid 0
Small update on deck, I dropped one Loot Hoarder for Arch-Thief Rafaam. That might sound a little strange, but let me explain.
The problem was that I was cycling through my whole deck but the high-control decks that are all the rage nowadays would simply remove everything I put on the board until I died to fatigue. I tried adding in a few more midrange minions like Tomb Pillager, but that didn't really do it. I really couldn't make use of the extra coins in this deck, either. I tried things like Loatheb thinking if I could just stall that crucial turn I could finish it, but Reno Jackson says "hi." I even tried Anub'arak, thinking maybe I just needed a persistent threat, but he was just auto-Entomb fodder.
Arch-Thief Rafaam has dodged all these downsides. He gives me a single extremely high-value card that lets me close out the game. It's usually Lantern of Power, but I have used Mirror of Doom on a few occasions when I know my opponent is out of AoE. Sure he can be removed easily, but he's already given me what I want. In fact, if he sticks on the board I consider it a boon.
I'm considering adding Dr. Boom since if you have one BGH target, might as well add in the doctor. That said, he still doesn't flow very well with the deck so it's not a sure thing.