Welcome to the Hearthstone realm!
Edit: I rewrote a lot of the guide since I made some key changes. In case you don't get the comments below, it might be because the list has changed since.
Intro
I climbed with this deck from the start of the season (albeit I started at Rank 4), so it's definitely viable to climb with. The concept is pretty simple I took the really powerful tempo package of Rogue which can win games by themselves, and I combined it with another broken thing Rogues have access to but isn't used very often: Necrium Blade.
A 3/2 weapon by itself is not bad, but curving into Blightnozzle Crawler or SN1P-SN4P will practically guarantee you have the board early. The real prize is if you can activate it on Mechanical Whelp which will honestly happen more often than you think on Turn 5 or 6. With this deck, you can continuously clear their board while pushing damage quite often. [Hearthstone Card (Blightnozzle) Not Found] might not see a lot of play right now, but it was still the best consistent deathrattle you could curve into on turn 4 that gave you tempo. As most players will not kill it either, it gives you an opportunity to magnetize it on the later turns as well.
Special mention to Octosari because he's just beautiful, please don't use your blade ability on him unless you're desperate. When you have the Octodaddy in your hand, dump as much of it as you can and play it once you do, it's a checkmate in most cases. I'll also say that I tried running Anka, the Buried in this deck already, but it didn't really let me get my whelps out earlier and most of the time I'd rather have the stats of my deathrattles. I also used to have Underbelly Fence, while it was good in a few match-ups, I eventually replaced them with Hench-Clan Thug since they were bigger threats and more consistent in general.
Deck Building
To understand how to play this deck you'll need a deeper understanding of the concept behind it first. What you'll immediately notice first are an abundance of 3-drops. I have so many because that's the turn Rogues never want to miss. Skipping turn 1 is pretty normal and isn't so bad since hero power on turn 2 will normally get you back the board, you'll want to carry the tempo your hero power gives you into turn 3 though so you can develop your board while keeping theirs clean. The 3-drops you don't mind playing on turn 3 by themselves are Hench-Clan Thug, Blink Fox, SN1P-SN4P, Necrium Blade, and SI:7 Agent; if you're on the coin, then you can play a 3-drop on turn 2 and turn 3 and control the board with Backstab and Vendetta if it's active.
When I create decks, I tend to focus on two things in general: ladder effectiveness and consistency. My choice of Hench-Clan Thug reflects ladder effectiveness; although Underbelly Fence was great against decks like Quest Shaman, Zoolock, and Aggro Warrior, they were already good match-ups to begin with so I'd rather shore up my weaker ones like Quest Druid and Control Warrior. It's a different concept vs tournament decks that will normally target certain decks in particular because that makes sense for tournaments. I play purely ladder though so I want to have as much of a fighting chance against everything. Also, you won't always draw an activator for the Fence either which means it was a dead card at times. Consistency for me means I'll run as many copies of a card as I possibly can so I have the most chances of drawing it. Especially for Rogue lists, you'll see a lot of decks running single copies of non-legendary cards since it helps them answer all scenarios. My mentality though is that if it's good enough to run one copy of, then I should be able to run two copies instead.
The tempo package should be self-explanatory to most people familiar with Rogue, so I'll only touch on the deathrattle package instead. Some people will try to go heavy on the deathrattles and put all kinds of wonky stuff like Anka, the Buried, Necrium Vial, and Myra Rotspring. I think that makes the list strictly worse. You always have to go for broken stuff in Standard so short of SN1P-SN4P and possibly Octosari, no other deathrattle card is really that good for Rogue. Blightnozzle Crawler and Mechanical Whelp are there, but that's because the upside with the blade was so high. So even if it's a deathrattle deck, I really only put a few deathrattles because putting any more will really just make my average draw weaker since I normally wouldn't want to play most deathrattle cards in Rogue without the blade.
Mulligan Guide
Use this as a general guide, but it will really depend on every situation so don't be afraid to deviate if you can see a good curve.
Always Keep: Pharaoh Cat, Blink Fox, Necrium Blade, SN1P-SN4P, Hench-Clan Burglar
Situational:
Match-Ups
I'll admit that I don't have stats recorded during my climb, so most of my commentary below is based on what I can recall.
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Very interesting deck! Went 7-0 when playing casual, but started losing quite a lot in constructed rank 7.
Do you happen to have any stored replays against Shaman? You mentioned that it should be an easy match up, but I'm struggling big time against them. It probably has something to do with my timing going face vs. clearing the board, so it would be very interesting to see you play the deck.
I'll help you with it: if you are against Murloc, keep your removals and spread; if you are against Quest, don't play more than 3 minions at time (MCT will punish you really hard since it will always steal good stuff) and clear Lifedrinkers, EVIL Totems and Lackeys (you don't want to enable Weaponized Wasp).
I should have a lot of replays on HS Replay, so if you want I can link you some on them (I run Underbelly Fence instead of Hench-Clan Thug though)
A few links to replays would be great, thanks!
Would it be viable to add a few more pirates and Raiding Party in order to draw the Necrium Blade more consistently?
I'll admit I've never tried it, so I can't answer for certain, but I'll walk through my thought process since I did consider it already.
The additional pirates aren't too hard to add, you could always use Sahket Sapper over Blightnozzle Crawler and actually I did initially have them in that slot before I switched the two cards for better consistency. The problem might be with Raiding Party itself since it's just so expensive now. If you add Raiding Party I feel like you'd also need to add Preparation to make it more playable. Preparation would generally work with Sap, Eviscerate, and Raiding Party itself, but is it actually worth it? The answer might actually be yes. It makes stuff like your Edwin stronger and generally gives you better tempo at the cost of value.
What would I cut and what would match-ups would I want more tempo for though? This is where I struggle. Your hardest match-ups are Druid, OTK Pally, and Control Warrior. The kind of tempo the package generates doesn't really help against those classes though since they don't play too many minions which your spells would work against. In the end, you'd much rather have value instead since you typically are already faster against them, so you'd prefer to play a stream of minions rather than potentially draw dead spells or waste mana drawing.
My conclusion based on theory: Nah.
How about adding a few pirates and Raiding Party in order to draw the Necrium Blade more consistently?
Just hit Legend with this!
Edit: you actually changed a few cards since the first time I saw the list. Now I think there are way too many 3 drops: you won't attack very ofter in the first few turns, cause you want to set up "other class cards" effects and a good turn 6 Necrium Blade trigger on either Mechanical Whelp or double SN1P-SN4P.
Hench-Clan Thug is a pretty good tempo card, but not that tempo you want to play, otherwise you would just use a pure Aggro list.
Great to hear! The only change in the mana cost was actually Underbelly Fence for the Thugs and when you think about it, the Fence wasn't really a 2-drop to begin with unless you get the cat and highroll a class card. Curve-wise it actually makes it more consistent. I found this version to be better personally since it helped shore up my weaker match-ups in general. At worst the Thug is just a 4/4 for 3 (assuming I'm in an awkward situation where I'm trying to save blade which I rarely face if I plan out my turns), which is already better than the Fence against control since the Rush isn't as important. I explained it in my guide revision. At the end of the day it's what suits you best though.
Do you think Myra rotspring fits into this deck after the discover patch??
Myra's always felt a little slow / random to me. I'd need to relook at the available deathrattles again, but my gut reaction says no since I don't think you could properly anticipate the outcome.
Made some minor changes to the deck and I think I'll need to rewrite the guide to explain more things soon. I cut the Underbelly Fences for Hench-Clan Thugs and it works better in general now. Made it to top 40 last night with the changes (though might have decayed since).
Quote From Draycon Myra's always felt a little slow / random to me. I'd need to relook at the available deathrattles again, but my gut reaction says no since I don't think you could properly anticipate the outcome.
Made some minor changes to the deck and I think I'll need to rewrite the guide to explain more things soon. I cut the Underbelly Fences for Hench-Clan Thugs and it works better in general now. Made it to top 40 last night with the changes (though might have decayed since).
Amazing! Well done! Looking forward to the new guide (thanks in advance).
I got Myra in a pack but have never played her really.. Hoping that she'll be good with the new patch
Thanks! Updated the guide and hope this works out better for you.
i just dont have edwin. replacement recommendations?
Edwin is probably the least important of the legendaries. Something like a Hench-Clan Thug is fine.
Edit: replied under the wrong post lol
Hey man
do u think it would be worse off if I included togwaggle instead of octosari, just can't craft it atm lol
Togwaggle is not one of my preferred ones unless you also cut something like Underbelly Fences for Cable Rats to make it more consistent. Siamat or Undatakah if you have them would be better.
Looks like a decent and fun deck - but i do not have Octosari - not sure if i should craft him ... any replacements for him or is he just plain powerful in this deck and therefor needed ?
Not sure if Octo is worth it just for this deck, try Undatakah or Siamat as replacements. Both are legendary but at least Siamat is used in plenty ofy decks.
Ok thx, i will try Siamat first!
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