The first few days after the recent announcements (the nerfs and the new cards) have been hard for combo rogue players. The majority of us (me included) have reached a point of hearthstone-depression and thought that Blizzard is likely to not even want combo to be a thing any more outside of Freeze mage. There was of course a minority of players that were saying that we're exagerating. Were we? Lets consider the possibilities in this thread.
Most people expected Maly-rogue to remain a thing after the release of the new expansion. That's what i'll examine, i dont see any other viable possibilities. One alternative worth mentioning is maybe Southsea Deckhand + Cold Bloods + Faceless Manipulator, but i dont consider it as likely to be good as Maly-rogue could be.
Now on to the big questions...
What's the damage mitigation/heal/taunts going to be? What replaces Antique Healbot and/or Sludge Belcher in Maly-rogue decks? I think the most obvious-safe option is Earthen Ring Farsheer. The question then becomes will we need a second card? ...and if so what will that card be? I think that in a meta that is likely to revolve around aggro/mid-range Shaman we're likely to want more heal/taunt than just one farsheer. I belive that the second one is likely to be: Psych-o-Tron.
What will we do after the nerf of Blade Flurry? What are the implications of this nerf, what purpose(s) did it serve and with what can it be replaced? ...or can we still run it as a one of with 2xpoisons? It obviously helped mostly to turn the tides in the mid-game and could also be used as a finisher. Maybe it's not needed as much any more with the absence of many sticky minions. Also, 1-health minions could be a thing in future divine shield aggro paladin, and hunter so Fan of Knives could suffice in those situations. ...and Fan of Knives and a spell-damage minion could take care of most zoo-warlock minion if that remains a thing. The rest could be taken care of by SI:7 Agent, Backstab, Shadow Strike etc. So, maybe the biggest problem is the fact that it had two uses.
On to card specifics:
Is Xaril, Poisoned Mind going to be helpful? I think so, but i have my doubts if it will be good enough if the meta is fast. So, i find it likely to be removed from the deck in certain metas.
Is Shadowcaster going to be useful? I saw that many people loved this card for every type of rogue, but i'm just not seeing its appeal in maly-rogues. Could still try it as a one-off i guess, it surely requires testing but i find the fact that it requires set-up or super-late-game unappealing.
Is Yogg-Saron, Hope's End going to be good for (combo) rogues? I like it, and i'm going to try it for sure. I feel like it's like to be a board clear, card draw and 1-2 secrets all in one. Things that maly-rogues like. Could still be way too slow and too random though. Not sure.
Is Silithid Swarmer a card we'd like to see in (combo) rogue decks? I think that it's not a very bad card but while some could argue that we need some early game to help in the absence of Blade Flurry in the mid-game i doubt that this card will help.
Journey Below is a possibility, to strengthen the early game but also be able to cycle it through auctioneer. Probably not though.
Evolved Kobold: Stats are very underwhelming, but the effect is powerful. I doubt that this could see play but i think it requires testing.
Do we need to run a Violet Teacher? In short i think probably not but maybe it's a card worth considering. Could be even stronger than before with most of the spammy minions gone people might run less AoE.
From the cards that i mentioned above i find Xaril to be by far the most likely to work, still i think that the rest are worth mentioning.
How many Shadow Strikes and Saps will we need to run? I am putting sap in the same question as Shadow Strike because i feel like they're in competition. I feel like 2x Shadow Strike and 1x Sap. Maybe if the meta is full of huge minions (for example: ramp druids) sap could be the better choice. Not sure.
I have a deck ready to try when the expansion hits, reading my comments above i think that it's obvious what it will look like. No need to link it and reduce the discussion to commenting on the deck instead of the issue at hand.
I've seen many pros not being optimistic at all about the future of (combo) rogues, and i've seen them saying that the future is probably with the deathrattle stuff. Anyway, because i'm trying to be optimistic here (and the possibilities are there) i think that... There's the chance that we could finally manage to get a viable second archetype (with combo being first) so that our opponents when they see rogues dont exactly know how to mulligan against us.
I don't think Maly will be great, there's just too much burn you have to sit on an even with Flurry it wasn't a top tier deck.
I really think Cold Blood's are going to have to be a staple now for Rogue. Its a solid card, and just unused since it did not fit in with Oil or Maly.
There's going to have to be a lot of experimenting with the class; Rogue feels new now and no one is really sure what is viable.
The nerf to bladeflurry destroys an important piece to the combo rogue deck. BF was played in combo with deadly poison and deadly comboed with SI:7. It had synergy with nearly the whole deck from azure drake to thalnos. It's been played as removal, as aoe, as card cycle, and as a finisher. Combo rogue survived nerfs to Leeroy and Auctioneer but I don't think it can survive this. Not in it's current spellslinger form.
Rogues have no good aoe options. Betrayal is garbage, has no synergy, and CAN'T clear the board. Vanish bounces your own minions, costs too much, and gives two battlecries for your opponent. Rogue will never keep up with aggro decks by playing vanish on turn 7 only to have the hunter charge face two turns in a row.
It's a drastic change but that's WoG as a whole. It's Hearthstone 2.0 and Rogue 2.0 as well this time with deathrattle minions in place of combos. Sadly the game loses a playstyle. Rogue is going to be another aggro/midrange deck like everything else.
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The first few days after the recent announcements (the nerfs and the new cards) have been hard for combo rogue players. The majority of us (me included) have reached a point of hearthstone-depression and thought that Blizzard is likely to not even want combo to be a thing any more outside of Freeze mage. There was of course a minority of players that were saying that we're exagerating. Were we? Lets consider the possibilities in this thread.
Most people expected Maly-rogue to remain a thing after the release of the new expansion. That's what i'll examine, i dont see any other viable possibilities. One alternative worth mentioning is maybe Southsea Deckhand + Cold Bloods + Faceless Manipulator, but i dont consider it as likely to be good as Maly-rogue could be.
Now on to the big questions...
What's the damage mitigation/heal/taunts going to be? What replaces Antique Healbot and/or Sludge Belcher in Maly-rogue decks? I think the most obvious-safe option is Earthen Ring Farsheer. The question then becomes will we need a second card? ...and if so what will that card be? I think that in a meta that is likely to revolve around aggro/mid-range Shaman we're likely to want more heal/taunt than just one farsheer. I belive that the second one is likely to be: Psych-o-Tron.
What will we do after the nerf of Blade Flurry? What are the implications of this nerf, what purpose(s) did it serve and with what can it be replaced? ...or can we still run it as a one of with 2xpoisons? It obviously helped mostly to turn the tides in the mid-game and could also be used as a finisher. Maybe it's not needed as much any more with the absence of many sticky minions. Also, 1-health minions could be a thing in future divine shield aggro paladin, and hunter so Fan of Knives could suffice in those situations. ...and Fan of Knives and a spell-damage minion could take care of most zoo-warlock minion if that remains a thing. The rest could be taken care of by SI:7 Agent, Backstab, Shadow Strike etc. So, maybe the biggest problem is the fact that it had two uses.
On to card specifics:
Is Xaril, Poisoned Mind going to be helpful? I think so, but i have my doubts if it will be good enough if the meta is fast. So, i find it likely to be removed from the deck in certain metas.
Is Shadowcaster going to be useful? I saw that many people loved this card for every type of rogue, but i'm just not seeing its appeal in maly-rogues. Could still try it as a one-off i guess, it surely requires testing but i find the fact that it requires set-up or super-late-game unappealing.
Is Yogg-Saron, Hope's End going to be good for (combo) rogues? I like it, and i'm going to try it for sure. I feel like it's like to be a board clear, card draw and 1-2 secrets all in one. Things that maly-rogues like. Could still be way too slow and too random though. Not sure.
Is Silithid Swarmer a card we'd like to see in (combo) rogue decks? I think that it's not a very bad card but while some could argue that we need some early game to help in the absence of Blade Flurry in the mid-game i doubt that this card will help.
Journey Below is a possibility, to strengthen the early game but also be able to cycle it through auctioneer. Probably not though.
Evolved Kobold: Stats are very underwhelming, but the effect is powerful. I doubt that this could see play but i think it requires testing.
Do we need to run a Violet Teacher? In short i think probably not but maybe it's a card worth considering. Could be even stronger than before with most of the spammy minions gone people might run less AoE.
From the cards that i mentioned above i find Xaril to be by far the most likely to work, still i think that the rest are worth mentioning.
How many Shadow Strikes and Saps will we need to run? I am putting sap in the same question as Shadow Strike because i feel like they're in competition. I feel like 2x Shadow Strike and 1x Sap. Maybe if the meta is full of huge minions (for example: ramp druids) sap could be the better choice. Not sure.
How many Shivs, Fan of Knives, and Sinister Strikes? Maybe 2x Shiv, 2x Fan and 1x Sinister?
Am i missing something?
I have a deck ready to try when the expansion hits, reading my comments above i think that it's obvious what it will look like. No need to link it and reduce the discussion to commenting on the deck instead of the issue at hand.
I've seen many pros not being optimistic at all about the future of (combo) rogues, and i've seen them saying that the future is probably with the deathrattle stuff. Anyway, because i'm trying to be optimistic here (and the possibilities are there) i think that... There's the chance that we could finally manage to get a viable second archetype (with combo being first) so that our opponents when they see rogues dont exactly know how to mulligan against us.
I don't think Maly will be great, there's just too much burn you have to sit on an even with Flurry it wasn't a top tier deck.
I really think Cold Blood's are going to have to be a staple now for Rogue. Its a solid card, and just unused since it did not fit in with Oil or Maly.
There's going to have to be a lot of experimenting with the class; Rogue feels new now and no one is really sure what is viable.
The nerf to bladeflurry destroys an important piece to the combo rogue deck. BF was played in combo with deadly poison and deadly comboed with SI:7. It had synergy with nearly the whole deck from azure drake to thalnos. It's been played as removal, as aoe, as card cycle, and as a finisher. Combo rogue survived nerfs to Leeroy and Auctioneer but I don't think it can survive this. Not in it's current spellslinger form.
Rogues have no good aoe options. Betrayal is garbage, has no synergy, and CAN'T clear the board. Vanish bounces your own minions, costs too much, and gives two battlecries for your opponent. Rogue will never keep up with aggro decks by playing vanish on turn 7 only to have the hunter charge face two turns in a row.
It's a drastic change but that's WoG as a whole. It's Hearthstone 2.0 and Rogue 2.0 as well this time with deathrattle minions in place of combos. Sadly the game loses a playstyle. Rogue is going to be another aggro/midrange deck like everything else.