Hearthpwn

I'm personally also pretty hyped up by the Wild potential of Tess Greymane in a not-clunky Tempo Rogue shell. Apart from the power potential & stuff, there's the fact that Tess's worst enemies are opposing Rogues, and since everyone has been spitting on the Wild Rogue decks for so long for whatever reasons, the class is much less popular than in Standard ;-)

I like the direction your list is taking right now, but there are a few things I would argument on :

- My main issue is with the absence of the Pirate package (Southsea Deckhand, Patches the Pirate, Ship's Cannon and Southsea Captain). Although it takes a lot of slots, it's so effective against the opposing proactive decks that I consider it necessary to have any edge against all of those Aggro Pallies. They also make all of those "slow" Thief curve plays more affordable Tempo-wise, because you won't play them as much from behind on the board (sure, 2/2 for 2s and 3/3 for 3s aren't horrible, but they aren't great Tempo plays either, while the Aggro opponents are playing all-out on Tempo). They also make up for some really pressuring openers that just can't get ignored by Big Priests and Cube/Giants Lock, unless they are okay with loosing to Loatheb or Sap ;-)

- To complement the Pirate package, Piloted Shredder would also be great. It's a powerful nuisance, and the turns 1-3 Pirate nonsense -> turn 4 Shredder -> turn 5 Loatheb curve is really hard to come back from.

- In term of cards to remove, I haven't been convinced by Elven Minstrel that much in Wild Tempo Rogues. You have so much creatures in Tempo Rogue that you can't count on him to tutor a finisher, meaning it's most likely going to be a low-tempo Value card that needs a combo activator. But since you already have a ton of value generation off of the Thief creatures, it simply isn't needed imo.

- Tinker's Sharpsword Oil is too much clunky imo if you don't have either a ton of early drops and a very quick game plan including Cold Blood, Leeroy Jenkins, etc., or a Kingsbane game plan, or 2 Preparation and some Sprint/Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and even then, I think it's a bit too spread apart and old school for today's "standards". I think that with the Thief cards, your objective is rather to endlessly play fair creatures, with a few efficient Tempo gains here and there, and then eventually make them run off of answers or make a huge Tempo swing with Ethereal Peddler's discounted cards and/or Tess Greymane. With this game plan, Oil really doesn't fit imo because it suddenly generates a lot of damage potential, and then when they remove your buffed creature you don't have enough burst to finish them off with your buffed weapon because you don't play Leeroy & Co. And that's what happens when you're ahead; when you're behind and don't have board control, the card just doesn't do anything since you can't try to rush them in two turns or can't abuse the weapon buff with a Lifesteal Kingsbane for example :)

Here's what my build looks like atm, hope it can be helpful ! :

It is playable for sure. Even without the Tess flavour this is still exactly the kind of card you generally see in Tempo Rogue because it's just a curve play (unlike Edwin VanCleef and SI:7 Agent that you'd prefer saving up for when their Combo effects are relevant) that generates a bit of value to combat defensive decks or out-value other proactive decks.

The Beast tag isn't relevant at all. It's even probably the worst minon tag for Rogues after Totem (atleast you can find a Houndmaster/other Beast synergies against Hunter which is game-breaking) since there's absolutely no build implications. But still, the fox's cuteness is worth a neglectable creature type :p

Quote from twitchy >>

Why pay 4 mana for a 3/5 when you can pay 5 mana for a cube that spits out a board full of Void Lords.

Pretty cool interaction ! Although piling up conditional bad cards with some other conditional bad cards don't particularly make a good deck...

Especially when the combo doesn't win on the spot, and eats Silence, Ooze-effects, removals and trades...

 Hey, look !

It's Kingsbane !

But it's terrible ! :D

Funnily enough, this crap was most likely the prototype for K&C's Rogue legendary weapon... And receiving abandonned-class-legendary drafts as real epics for the new expansion doesn't feel really good...

At least I guess the petty ATK could lead to assume that new weapon buffs are coming up, which would be much needed since the 4-mana weapon-pirates are rotationg out...

Oh, look. A Miracle Rogue card getting bashed by people using other classes standards.

How original.

Yup. Changing his warding to simply « Rush » would actually be a nerf.

It’s already weak enough in constructed, no need to remove the cool niche Recruit/Cube combos your can make with it :p

Quote from daddy2pro >>

Mind pickint pyroblast then? what's the use of Ice block here? 

The +1 durability is very valuable, but add another 4 mana weapon buff Pirate; that's still some valuable Kingsbane buffer that would be in the deck if we had like 35-40 card spots :p

Hey there ! Pretty long thread in sight ! I've made my best to stuff the longest parts inside spoilers and write some TL; DR to make it easier for those who don't wanna spend too long reading, but I'd recommend you make yourself a coffee carafe and take the time to read those if you're interested in playing Kingsbane decks or if you're already a Kingsbane afficionado ;-D

So Kobolds and Catacombs is now two month old and most of those new cards mechanics seem to be pretty mastered by the majority of players by now. That said, I'm still very confused about the way most players build around one of those cards ; you guessed it, it's Kingsbane, and the fact that it's generally used with Coldlight Oracle with the intend to play a Mill-like type of deck. And I'd like to use this thread to both throw in "a few" reflexions and read a bit of your own experiences to kinda take those different points of view into account.

But most importantly, with the number of (very reasonable) nerfs Tempo Rogue has taken alongside the other board-oriented proactive decks, it has become quite less popular and is now being challenged by Miracle Rogue with both decks seeing decent results right now (50-55%). Therefore I think it's a good moment to put Kingsbane Rogue in perspective to try and refine the archetype more to make it comparable to its two counterparts in term of results. Although I do respect the players and personalities with a lot of influence (but mostly skill and in-game creativity ! =) like Kolento for example, I feel like this archetype hasn't been refined seriously enough for the ladder and has been popularized in some very one-dimentional variants (obviously anti-Priest and anti-Warlock) that make it kind of a meme-deck on the ladder right now, which is perfectly fine : even Reno/Highlander or Aggro Pirate decks used to be some jokes before they got refined.

About Kingsbane and Coldlight Oracle

First of all, let's clear out that I have been playing enough Coldlight Oracle, especially in Wild's Gang Up Mill Rogue before K&C was even announced, to know well enough the strenghts of Coldlight Oracle, which I'll cite here as a way to unwrap the card a little bit and consider the upsides and downsides of playing it in a deck :

In case of TL;DR

• Coldlight Oracle is THE Mill card and Rogue has a lot of cards that are good in a mill playstyle
• Discarding key card through mill can win some games by itself but you can't control what gets milled and you can actually do the opposite and accelerate your opponent
• Mill and Coldlight Oracle in general are terrible against fast proactive decks
• Coldlight Oracle and synergistic cards like Shadowstep, Vanish and Valeera the Hollow provide some strong hand refill alltogether
• That said, counting solely on Coldlight Oracle to refill your hand creates clunky situations where you either don't have a self-bounce effect in hand or you don't even draw Oracle

Now let's talk a bit about Kingsbane. This card is definitely the one that got me the most excited about K&C; as a Rogue afficionado, to me it's one of the best designed Hearthstone cards in a very long time, and probably the best designed card overall if we focus on its impact during a game and during the deckbuilding. As you can guess, I've played a lot of Kingsbane decks after K&C's release; more than any other deck actually, and I know my lot about it.

 In case of TL;DR

• A well buffed Kingsbane generates a lot of tempo and value, allows you to deck yourself and cannot be hard-teched against
• The weapon buff cards are quite decent cards by themselves, and can be much less clunky and dependent to Kingsbane than they would seem with good understanding of the game and decision-making
• Although the card is extremely powerful in late game, the most greedy decks have ways to outlast you, so you should out-tempo and kill them before they get to the "puzzle" state of the game where you both have very predictable options and they can play their way out of it.
• Kingsbane still creates some inconsistencies if you're pressured down and not drawing your synergistic cards in the right order
• Kingsbane demands a good bunch of deck slots and ressources during the game that you have to back up with some draw tools

What is wrong with Kingsbane Mill on ladder

Allright so now we're on the same page, here's my opinion about the Coldlight Oracle / Mill shell the majority of the Kingsbane players are using : although it's quite seriously effective against Priests and defensive Warlock decks, making it a valuable choice for some pro players (when I say pro, it is to be taken literally : a decent bunch of pro players are also streamers, who have to entertain their public ;-) when they want to hard counter some predictable high legend rank decks and eventually get some good youtube highlights against the perfect match-ups, I think it's way too marginal and clunky to actually be a serious choice in ladder. Here are the recent HSReplay numbers to give you an idea about what I'm talking about :

https://hsreplay.net/archetypes/184/kingsbane-rogue#tab=matchups

To detail my point a bit more :

To make things clearer in case of TL; DR and to developp my point a bit more with some tangible datas, here are two different Kingsbane decks with about 50% WR to picture out what I'm saying.

 https://hsreplay.net/decks/vxx30OGt3tASrT4cFsiXEb/#tab=overview

The first is a pretty classic Mill-oriented Kingsbane deck playing Vanish, Doomerang and Valeera the Hollow. You can see its very strong results against Priests and Warriors (slow Warriors like Recruit and Control being the most popular Warrior decks right now) and slightly positive results against Warlocks and Shamans (which is justified by the fact that those two classes are divided between slow Midrange/Control decks and Aggro/Zoo decks), while every other class match-ups are terrible. I chose this list because of its better winrate than the most popular Kingsbane Mill list (likely due to the fact that the most popular lists are played more by inexperienced Mill players), but the match-ups are absolutely similar same.

https://hsreplay.net/decks/FeBGJIuvJ2ZFgqK6s3gQhf/#tab=overview

The second list is a different variant of Kingsbane Rogue, still playing Coldlight Oracle as its main draw tool, but dropping its Mill aspect for some more early game and tempo-oriented cards like Fire Fly, Swashburglar + Patches the Pirate (how about that !) and Vilespine Slayer. Although its average WR isn't much more impressive than the previous deck, what's interesting with this deck is the fact that its match-ups are much more balanced, with a Priest match-up about 15% weaker but still favored in exchange for some better Hunter and Mage match-ups (about 5-10%) and some tremendously better Paladin and Rogue (keep in mind the majority of Rogue decks is made of Miracle Rogues and some less successful Kingsbane Mill Rogues ;-3 ) match-ups with a 20% upgrade.

Changing the playstyle

With the example of our last non-Mill deck, we can see that a deck that uses Kingsbane in a tempo/aggressive way and sets aside the Mill game plan not only works, but also works better against the overall field. And for good reasons : not only removing the Mill cards makes your Kingsbane package the only inconsistent things in your deck, meaning you have some space to support the package instead of relying on it, but it also just turns out playing the tempo game is more adapted to the many aggro/midrange decks you'll encounter on the ladder. How are you winning those Control Warlock games then ? Well it turns out putting pressure and playing Sap on your opponent's Voidlord is also a pretty good way to do it, especially when you have a powerful recursive weapon to kill their mid-sized minions and later go face ! :)

Another intersting thing with this playstlye is the fact that, just like in the old Oil Rogue archetype, you are much more free to use your weapon buff cards on your hero power, since you're not relying on going for the extremely long game and not dependant on cards like Doomerang, Blade Flurry or even Leeching Poison that require you to keep your buffs for Kingsbane. That means you're less dependant on something irregular (drawing Kingsbane early), and can just play out your games correctly everytime without having to try stalling multiple turns before you finally get to draw Cavern Shinyfinder, Elven Minstrel or Coldlight Oracle to start doing something relevant. Something typically important versus the aggro decks against which drawing your premium buffed Kingsbane multiple times isn't as important as succeeding in the attrition game as soon as possible to not get overrun by their board and burst tools.

All right, so playing Kingsbane in a proactive deck is cool and stuff, and apparently more relevant in the ladder. Sure. But how do we get to make the deck more successful than a "measly" 50% WR ? Well from my expercience of about 200-250 games playing multiple variants of Kingsbane decks on the ladder, it's by learning from the old school and playing a different draw mechanic than Coldlight Oracle + Shadowstep. We don't want to help out our proactive opponents finding ressources at all. Instead, we want to focus our ressources on tempo and board control, to pressure the opponent or at least mitigate their pressure, before refilling our hand with more threats, weapon buffs, removals and burst and use them to finish the game. Just like Secret Mages (Aluneth) and Aggressive Paladins (Divine Favor) right now, and just like Oil Rogue in the past and in today's Wild.

And what draw tool do we have to do that ? Well Preparation and Sprint of course !

• You almost emptied you hand to deal with all of those Secret Mage's early threats and took 16-18 damage in the process ? Well refill your hand with Sprint and use those ressources to not give them the time to topdeck those nasty burn spells !
• You're cornered down with a buffed weapon and a few minions against a pitched Voidlord/Obsidian Statue separating you from the victory ? Preparation+Sprint, finally draw that Sap, and gg wp !
• Having a tough time against a Murloc Paladin who successfully dominated the board and is protecting a Murloc Warleader + Murloc Tidecaller with a Rightheous Protector, preparing his deadly Divine Favor / Gentle Megasaur ? Preparation + Eviscerate + SI:7 Agent and get that board back while emptying your hand !
• Going even on the board with a smaller and smaller hand against Spiteful Priest, except he just highrolled a nice Deathwing, Dragonlord off of his Spiteful Summoner ? Preparation+Sprint+Sap and start out-tempoing him down with a new aggressive and tempo-efficient hand !

You might very rightfully say that Sprint has the downside of not being fetchable by Elven Minstrel compared to Coldlight Oracle. It is true, but put it into perspective : you just played an Elven Minstrel, which is in the weak side in term of tempo; would you rather draw another tempo-inefficient minon that's going to give you and your opponent new ressources, worsening your bad tempo situation, or would you rather secure the draw of more powerful and threatening minions to come back on the board, and rely on your future topdecks to either finally draw that Sprint and play it from a good board situation or at worse eventually just draw some more removals and threats to keep fighting the attrition game ?

Some samples for the reorientation

Now I've made all my points on how I think (of course those thoughts are backed up by experience and testing :) ) the Kingsbane ladder decks should evolve to be more consistent, proactive, and adapted to the meta-game, I'd like to share with you a few lists of my own that I've played and had some very satisfying success with, not as a way to promote my builds or something (they're unlisted anyway :p ), but to share with you some general directions to try and play Kingsbane proactively yourself :-)

The best start to get rid of those painfully weak early game turns and start mastering your new proactive playstlye.

• Fan of Knives has become mandatory to deal with Silver Hand Paladin against which you would otherwise have very few outs.
• The deck is really good at surprising Secret Mages and other aggro decks with its board control potential, although keep in mind even a 50-55% match-up implies that you will loose some games because of the RNG. But you definitely won't have totally unplayable hands anymore with this deck.
• The match-ups against defensive decks are slightly more complex though, as you will need to have some good openers, pressure them enough, and generally squeeze in a good Preparation + Sprint to have enough ressources (especially Sap) to close out the game before they can stabilize.

A build I favor a bit more because it's better against midrange and control decks. It's slightly more difficult to play as you have 2 less one-drops against aggro, and your turns 4-5 will be more clogged, meaning you have to make more decisions and consider your future lines of play more.

• Fal'dorei Strider basically adds the "generally summon 1-2 Leyline Spider" to your Sprint, which is completely nuts if you played it with a Preparation and follow it up with a removal for some tremendous board swings. If you have the opportunity, try thinning your deck with your Cavern Shinyfinder and Elven Minstrel before going for your Sprint to increase your odds of drawing Leyline Spider.
• Exchanging the 2 Swashburglar + Patches the Pirate with the removed 2 Fire Fly is also a good option if you're pouting Patches and want to make your combo cards easier to play. In this case, add Bloodmage Thalnos to make your board-control spells more efficient and cycle a bit more to support Fal'dorei Strider.
• When a bunch of Leyline Spider are in your deck, try balancing your usage of draw tools with your board state against defensive decks. You don't want to have more than 3 mid-sized bodies on the board if they are quite obviously all going to die to a board clear. Instead, try spreading your mana between your board presence, your weapon buffs to not offer some optimal plays to your opponent.

As the title says, it's the "okay, I want to focus on slow match-ups but still be decent against aggro" list. It will require you to mulligan really well and not be in never-lucky mode against aggro, but at least you'll have a really good time fighting slow decks and overrun them with your Lifesteal Kingsbane, Fal'dorei Strider and your 3 big draw tools making it almost impossible to lack ressources in the late game.

• Mistress of Mixtures isn't crazy against control, but you're planning on winning the game later with Leyline Spider, your buffed Kingsbane and your huge hands anyway. It's a really good card against aggro (considering we want the maximum defensive impact without using slots for cards like SI:7 Agent) and allows you to not play a second Leeching Poison. Play it carefully not to waste its potential against aggro though : if you play second and they played a 1-drop that can kill it, it's better to play her on turn 3 after having used your Hero Power to chip through the board rather than letting her die when you're at 30HP. She's also pretty good later for secret-checking against Secret Mage (she completely negates Explosive Runes for 1 mana), but if you're low on health and already dominating the board and most likely going to kill your opponent soon, checking with a 4 drop before playing her will be better against Potion of Polymorph, since you can either trade next turn or Backstab her right away to make sure you'll put yourself out of burn range.
• Although going all-in into trying to draw your Leeching Poison can sometimes be your only way out of some games against Hunter or Mages, don't do it mindlessly. Loosing the board control will most likely make you loose anyway, and depending on your number of HP and their burst potential, your likelyhood of killing the opponent in the next 2 turns if you pressure them down can be a more secure way out of this. It's ambiguous though, so if you end up loosing, try analysing what else you could have tried and rewatch the game if possible (with Hearthstone Deck Tracker, for example ;-).
• Don't expect to draw 5 cards off of Gadgetzan Auctioneer every game. You're not playing Miracle and will have to use a lot of your spells before turn 6. He's mostly there to ensure you can draw in the later stages of the game or use your Preparation in the mid game if you don't draw Sprint and not let it stick to your hand, then absorb a removal while you already have threats in hand for the next turn. If you have the choice between playing Sprint and Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Sprint should be preferred, especially with Preparation, as some of the 4 cards drawn will feed your Auctioneer later.
• Don't waste too much weapon buffs on your hero power (ideally against control you wouldn't want to waste any, but don't let it prevent you from playing a turn 4 Naga Corsair if you know it's gonna make your opponent make some hard choices (like letting it live and loose HP or wasting a 5-dmg Amethyst Spellstone immediatly), as you're more relying on Kingsbane to win the game than with the other Tempo Kingsbane decks.

To conclude, I'm not pretending to be an absolute expert with some form of exact insights on how Kingsbane will see more success in the future. I have played my bunch of games and I'm only sharing my thoughts, comparisons and advices. But I do feel like the Mill playstyle is seeing too much popularity for its actual potential in ladder, and that the Tempo playstyle hasn't seen enough play and tests after the recent nerfs while it used to already have some satisfying success before nerf when Corridor Creeper and Tempo Rogues were running rampant (~50% WR with the Tempo Kingsbane variants, while the Kingsbane Mill variants were at ~45% WR).

Anyway thank you a lot for taking the time to read; I hope I conviced some people to play Kingsbane differently, but I'd mostly be glad to receive some feedbacks and discuss (constructively) with you guys about that topic ! :-D

Cya !

Why is there never a wild report? The only mode I play

As usual, only standard agenda decks ... 

This is in my odd rogue i use it for my "last ditch kamikaze!" to push damage saved me a few times! it's basically an "all in card".

congratz, you get all the internet points now and an imaginary handjob. Also, you totally don't sound really insecure right now.

This list is gonna change a lot in a week...

Myra’s unstable element as one of the worst cards?? Really?

Hench-Clan Thug is the best aggressive card in the deck; taking him out would be a mistake.

Turn one The Coin Preparation Myra's Unstable Element Do it for the memes

You play it to obtain lethal. End stop.

The best part about this episode is watching Boarcontrol put up with Gaara's nonsense opinions on what is "good" for the game.