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It's not even a 5 heal, let alone a 3/7.

5 heal is 5 heal and can't be interacted with other than doing 5 damage.  The 0/5 taunt can be stolen (shadow priest), and hit with the huge list of things that only damage minions or full health stuff (pain, arcane blast, backstab, shadow strike, polymorph, etc).

Assume you have 5 health, rogue has 5 damage on board and a card.  If it was heal 5, you'd live.  However, in this case he shadow strikes the 0/5 and then lethals you. 

You're overrating this card, sorry :(

Quote from Jpx55 >>

I don't know about anyone else here but I found the 2nd teacher and 2nd shadow strike to be more consistent than the Sap and Xaril. teacher is such a threat while Xaril often does very little and dies to anything. 2nd sap was rarely needed. Haven't played against any paladins in like 10 years xD Btw, Thanks for posting this list!

Could be good in a rogue deck - I run a shadowcaster rogue and could see myself running it.  

He is a great shadowcaster target and this minimizes the weapon removal downside.  Just difficult to figure out what to cut for a low tempo no instant effect (unless you're eviscerating after) minion.

I think he'll see play but it's hard to think of many decks that can afford such a low tempo play on turn 8.

Argus is something I've been trying trying to find space for, out of curiosity what did you replace with it?  I'm still not 100% sold on auctioneer but the Argus and Raptors are something I'd try!  Must be a difference in playstyle for us as far as auctioneer effectiveness, I did my early season grind and again had few issues with card draw.  But lots of things affect how many cards you end up with - hero power usage, what you duplicate with Shadowcaster, Mulligans, local meta, etc.  So it's entirely conceivable that Auctioneer is something useful to your playstyle/meta that isn't to mine.

Losing xaril sucks but a second teacher is just fine - much better body and token creation. 

It just doesn't really need it, there's a ton of draw.  2x fan, 2x drake, thalnos, chance for draw(s) from Xar'il.  2xHuckster generates 2 cards, 2x shadowcaster each generate a 1/1 that often draws or generates even more cards - any of the cards above will do that when duplicated. If we consider Xaril half a draw, that's 9.5 draws or cards added to hand, PLUS whatever extra cards you get from shadowcastering something that generates or draws.  Yogg often draws too.

The deck ends up unable to play all its cards much more often than it runs out of steam.  Midrange hunter plays ONLY elekk for draw, which isn't even guaranteed.  My deck has 10+ draws plus card generation on average with everything factored in. 

My original version of this ran Cairne instead of Sylvanas and still worked, I was able to reach top 100 with it.   Sylvanas has the potential to be way more impactful, but Cairne is much more consistent. 

That said, Sylvanas is one of the absolute best cards in the game, so she is worth a craft once you have the dust :D

When you add Auctioneer, you should probably add two conceals and cold bloods.  And at that point, you might as well just play Miracle.  As soon as you add the Auctioneers, you're better off making a Miracle rogue than whatever other deck you're making - and I don't like Miracle Rogue personally.  

Also, this deck plays completely differently.  Auctioneer has no place in a tempo-oriented deck as a low tempo, low stat 6 drop with no same-turn benefit other than card draw.  Having no auctioneer allows me to use my spells as I choose... for removal, tempo, or even aggression.  On top of playing completely differently, it also has very different matchup percentages.  IMO, if you like Auctioneer, you're better off with a refined Miracle deck than some half-baked hybrid.  

Quote from sonicthenanobot >>

There are just too many battlecry minions you would have to not run to make him worth it.

Most decks already run Azure Drakes, and many run Finley.  Even just drawing those two makes him worth it.  Add in an owl or a kodo (or some powerful new neutral beast that may come from this adventure) and he gets pretty crazy. 

Obviously also useful for tutoring out Maly or Alex.

The statline really isn't that bad - I imagine just throwing him into a deck that has 5 or 6 good outcomes.  If he fizzles, his statline is still fine.  If he pulls something good, he can be just ridiculous.  In my current deck Sylvanas, Rag, pillager, xaril, or even huckster are great outcomes.  You're not building your whole deck around him, you're just throwing him in because the downside is small and the upside is huge. 

He reminds me a little bit of Totemic in that the "bad" outcomes are fine while the "good" outcomes can literally be game winning.  I think he's going to be better than most think,  and great in control decks as a low risk way to get some early momentum. 

I ended up cutting the raptors for a Brann and ... something else, I forget haha.  But here's a quick deck I threw together, you can toss in Raptors if you want.  No idea how it'll work!

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/592931-nzoth-shadowcaster-rogue

This is one of the very few cards that I would consider irreplaceable in the deck.  He wins games on his own against druids, can be a decent turn 3 against zoo (even just coin Edwin trades really nicely) and is a menace to warriors if they don't have execute in their starting hand.  He's also one of your absolute best Shadowcaster targets.  He's also super versatile in that he can be early aggression/defense, or a HUGE late game threat.  

You could probably get away with a second Farseer instead, but the deck will suffer.

I've considered Raptor, but at that point you might as well just turn it into a N'zoth Shadowcaster deck.  That said, I do think that a N'zoth deck that runs shadowcasters and a few good targets like Rag instead of the typical Miracle shell (Auctioneers, Cold Blood, etc) + N'zoth could be very successful.  I could throw together what I believe would be a decent list for this if you'd like!

Silly me, I must have completely forgotten to mention that this deck suddenly turns into a pumpkin and changes from a top 40 legend deck on NA into a rank 18 deck on EU, and magically loses all its synergies as well! I figured that was implied, my apologies.

Your results couldn't possibly be the pilot's fault - it's EU and this deck's fault you're rank 18! If only you played NA you'd be a top legend player too!!

I'm sincerely sorry that my deck didn't work out for you. If you'd like, I've got some decklists that are much more simple to play that may be of interest to you ;)