Hearthpwn

Quote from jazzfan27 >>

A lot of those cards arent auto include for every deck though...

Im not talking about every deck in the current meta.  Im talking about EVERY deck.  Want 2 for aggro, tempo, combo, midrange, and control.  Doesnt matter what you are playing you just throw 2x in.

Arcane intellect is a good suggestion.  But you probably dont put shadowstep or edwin in a combo deck for instance.

 

 The number of true auto-includes has drastically dropped over the last few years. Most of them were either nerfed, rotated, or became dispensable with new cards and more specialized decks. By now, most classes have at least a few different directions for deckbuilding, and don't rely much on old staples anymore. Auto-includes remain, where classes are forced into the same playstyle, or where cards prove universally useful.

I'd say Backstab is about the only card that is good for pretty much any Rogue deck you'd ever consider, since you'll most likely want a cheap removal and combo enabler, no matter what deck you play, and especially in the tempo-oriented playstyle that Rogue is pushed towards so often.

Shadowstep is also a good candidate, though it's not so much because of Rogue being one-dimensional, but because of the absurdly heavy emphasis on battlecries in card design generally. With effects like SI:7 Agent, Blackjack Stunner, Coldlight Oracle, Zephrys the Great, Kronx Dragonhoof, or N'Zoth, the Corruptor, there are so many possibilities now that recycling battlecries has become an all-purpose tool. Battlecry is an overused keyword.

Swipe has been given up on lately, though Druid is generally lacking options for board control and burst. It's oftentimes a difficult decison whether you can leave it out or not. Unleash the Hounds is universally useful, as burst, board control or combo card (like in Quest Hunter), but over the last couple expansions, Hunter received a lot of support for more specialized deckbuilding (Deathrattles, Mechs, Dragons, face damage), and the card has become far less ubiquitous than it used to be, much like Kill Command and Animal Companion.

With Power Word: Shield nerfed and Divine Spirit removed from Basic, Priest is reduced to a control-only class, making Shadow Word: Death pretty much an auto include. The Classic overhaul shows signs of Priest developing a minion-focused playstyle, but it hasn't shown any success yet.

As for Demon Hunter and Skull of Gul'dan: Even if it became a Classic card, I think it's too early to tell where Demon Hunter will end up. I feel like people forget that Demon Hunter is not just that one deck, but an entire new class. It will probably take a year, maybe even longer, until Demon Hunter is established enough to have its identity properly outlined. And there's certainly a possibility that it ends up in a different spot than it is right now. And if Demon Hunter becomes more of a control or combo class (Chaos Nova is a good baseline after all), or refines even more into an aggressive face damage class, Skull of Gul'dan might get dropped eventually.

Twin Slice, on the other hand, feels very similar to Backstab.