Hearthpwn

During July I had a breakthrough month (for me) reaching rank 1 (not legend) with N'Zoth Rogue. I felt like disconnects, attempts at other decks for which I was less skilled, and just not getting the games in kept me from getting legend, but I was happy with the progress nevertheless. August has been kind of a bummer. I didn't play much the first 5 days or so, but since then I've played a ton. N'Zoth has not performed well for me. In addition to Shaman being more popular this month, adventure releases combined with adjusted deck building has made Mid-Range Hunter and Tempo Mage into unfavorable matchups. I've had a minor amount of success with an Evolve Shaman list as well as a Yogg Druid list along with hopes for a Zoolock deck once Malchezaar's Imp is released. However, rank 4 is just not satisfactory anymore...

That said, with 3 adventure wings unlocked, Rogue has had some potential additions unlocked.

<pre>1) Barnes
2) Swashburglar
3) Runic Egg</pre>

Below are 3 lists I've been trying out and my thoughts on them...

NO PREP, NO PROBLEM

<pre>2x Backstab
2x Journey Below
2x Runic Egg
2x Eviscerate
2x Sap
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Undercity Huckster
1x Fan of Knives
1x Shadow Strike
1x Edwin VanCleef
2x SI:7 Agent
2x Unearthed Raptor
1x Barnes
2x Tomb Pillager
2x Azure Drake
1x Dark Iron Skulker
1x Cairne Bloodhoof
1x N'Zoth, the Corruptor

My thought process here was that additional card draw, with Unearthed Raptor being a future cycle that is always on curve would make up for a lack of Preparation. There are so many sweepers out there, with so many being one-sided and against opponents who I depend on my minions for on-board control that Runic Egg made sense to me. Without the Prep's, I knew I would need to cut back on expensive spells like Fan of Knives and Shadow Strike so I added a Dark Iron Skulker for additional board control while throwing in Barnes as a test card (10 of 20 minions have deathrattle, plus Barnes is one of those without, so... 10 of 19 would be above baseline value, with several more having spell power - occasionally a thing.

Conclusion: The deck is just too slow without Preparation. Also, Barnes is not as good as Tomb Pillager. I won board and card advantage in about half the games I lost, only to have my opponent barely trickle over the finish line before I could finish them off. I think I won half or just under half my games with this list after about 40 clear-headed, focus driven games. So many close games ending in a loss was frustrating, but after enough of them it's clear that the deck needs a little more tempo... So, next try... </pre>

EVERYBODY LOVES A SWASHBURGLAR

<pre>2x Backstab
2x Preparation
2x Journey Below
2x Swashburglar
2x Eviscerate
2x Sap
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Undercity Huckster
2x Fan of Knives
2x Shadow Strike
1x Edwin VanCleef
2x SI:7 Agent
2x Unearthed Raptor
2x Tomb Pillager
2x Azure Drake
1x Cairne Bloodhoof
1x N'Zoth, the Corruptor

I just wanted to see if Swashburglar was the real deal... Sorry Loot Hoarder! The rest of my July/August deck stayed the same and I played around 15 games with this list before taking a couple hour break and trying with a 3rd list.

Conclusion: Swashburglar was fine. a 1/1 body is not as good as a 2/1 and a random class card is not as good as cycling thru my deck. Nevertheless, the single mana cost has nice synergy with combo and sometimes I got killer spells that made my Prep's better than usual. [I.E. Lots of RNG] I felt like this change by itself was a wash and not the breakthrough I desperately need.</pre>

MORE CHEAP CARDS

<pre>2x Backstab
2x Cold Blood
2x Journey Below
2x Runic Egg
2x Swashburglar
2x Eviscerate
2x Sap
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Undercity Huckster
1x Edwin VanCleef
2x SI:7 Agent
2x Unearthed Raptor
2x Tomb Pillager
2x Azure Drake
1x Dark Iron Skulker
1x N'Zoth, the Corruptor

I'd seen a Runic Egg, Swashburglar, Twilight Summoner, Shadowcaster deck running around on stream and by an opponent I'd beaten. While I remained dismissive of the Summoner and Shadowcaster, I'd already been thinking what if I add Cold Blood to my Runic Egg list? There is a lot of similarity between Power Overwhelming and Cold Blood, but Cold Blood has more upside even though it's in a deck that previously couldn't use the effect as well as Zoolock and doesn't have a card like Dark Peddler to find it.

Conclusion: After being 4-0 in games, I stopped for the night. I was played out after a long Saturday of gaming. The deck played wonderfully. I jumped out on the board before my opponent. I kept surprising my opponents. They kept trying to clean me up so they could gain priority - the only trouble being that when they tried to clean up my board they gave me the gas to expand my board. In fact, I had the gas to repeatedly build the board against repeated sweeps - all without playing N'Zoth, the Corruptor. To be fair, I could've lost the 3rd game I played with this list after a crucial missplay and I had to win some mild RNG to get game 4. It should be noted that 4 games is really not a big enough sample size to make conclusions. However, the game play was fun, the deck was quick. Cold Blood was awesome! Along the way I outzoo'd Zoolock (easily), out-tempoed and out-valued an aggressive start from mid-range Shaman, and beat Tempo Mage twice (same opponent) - much of which was done with his own spells from Undercity Huckster and Swashburglar. The games were so exciting and so initially promising I decided to write about it here...</pre>

I played a druid mirror 30 minutes ago and my opponent played Recombobulator on his Druid of the Claw only to have it turn into a Core Hound.

Makes me wonder if my opponent knew of the bug, which is why they would play a card like Recombobulator in the first place.