Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Mistcaller + Mistcaller + Mana Tide was amusing.

Fighteer, as our resident Mill Rogue expert have you been trying Brann at all? Extra healing and drawing sounds quite potent.

I don't have any of thouse cards in constructed. I'm doing an occasional free to play run and trying to slowly earn all the cards without spending real money.

Join the F2P club. Anyway, those are some insane cards for a draft.

edited 22nd Nov '15 6:08:01 AM by Pyrite

Today I don't have to be a Rogue.

@Swampertrox: I am indeed attempting Brann in Mill Rogue. It works reasonably well, either as a high priority removal target for my opponent or an amazing combo piece. For example, I forced a Face Hunter to surrender by playing Brann + Healbot twice, thanks to a timely Vanish.

I was 6-2 in arena, Warlock versus Mage, if I won the game I would get a new personal record in arena wins. My opponent was about to kill me next turn, but his hand was empty and I had Twisting Nether in hand. But when I play it it turns out that secret he had was a Counterspell and I promptly lose the game. The kicker? I had a Savagery sitting in my hand from a Spellslinger earlier in the game that I could have used to bait the Counterspell if I had just thought about it.

TFW you win a tavern brawl with only 1 health left...with ice block. :D

Got a lucky run of opponents and reached rank 15. That seems to be the most important goal, rewardwise.

Huh, watching Kripp's channel and it seems that Unearthed Raptor may actually let a controllish rogue be a thing(he tore off 14-2 wins/losses with it-and that was with a deck he admitted could probably use a few revisions . Heh, even if it turns out to not be a top tier deck on ladder, are we seeing the birth of Deathrattle Rogue?

It's not really Control Rogue, though. It's much closer to Tempo Rogue, which was a strong deck way before Naxxramas was released. The main strength of Tempo Rogue has always been an explosive early game (answering a turn 2 Knife Juggler with a Coin + SI:7 Agent, or playing a minion + Backstab to deal with the enemy 2-drop). The main drawback is that you run out of steam quickly, and have no way to keep up in the late game.

Several Rogue cards have been added specifically with the Tempo Rogue play style in mind, like Abub'ar Ambusher, Dark Iron Skuler and Ogre Ninja. However, none of these cards ended up being strong enough to keep Tempo Rogue in the meta (remember, Shaman was once considered top tier while Paladin was absolute trash - these things tend to happen over time).

Anyway, Tempo Rogue needed something specific that Raptor offers quite well. Deathrattle minions are very strong for tempo-oriented decks, which is why decks like Zoo like to run them. Raptor works great with those for early game aggression, either allowing you to trade and have a bunch of leftover minions, or go face and have an Ao E-resilient board. Either way, a 3 mana 3/4 on curve is really strong (even without the Deathrattle). Raptor adds a strong 3-drop that you can play proactively, while Rogue's other 3 mana minion, SI:7 Agent, isn't really a 3-drop. It fills the curve very nicely.

However what's really great for Tempo Rogue is that if we look a little further up the mana curve we see a few big Deathrattle minions; Sylvanas and Dr. Boom. These are strong on their own, but Tempo Rogue never really had a reason to play them. They're extremely powerful, but work best in the late game and Tempo Rogue never really wanted to reach that late game. Raptor adds an incentive for Tempo Rogue to grind out Control matches where possible, but it remains a board-oriented tempo deck at the core, in such cases it can play like a Control Priest which is also all about board control, but it all things considered it fits nicely in the Midrange archetype (like most tempo-oriented decks, may I add).

Kripp isn't the only one that has found success with the deck. Tempo Storm currently ranks it as Tier 3, which is quite good for such a new deck in my opinion, especially one like this that still has to be figured out (there are many different versions out there currently, whereas most "refined" decks tend to be much closer to each other). Most players that have tried "Raptor Rogue" seem to be doing rather well with it, but only time will tell if this new incarnation of Tempo Rogue will stay in the meta...

Ugh, I can't stand those trolls who intentionally prolong the game by waiting until the turn end fuse starts burning.

When you know the game doesn't want you to play Mill Rogue: Five games in a row without ever seeing a Coldlight Oracle.

Isn't Oil Rogue a Tempo variant?

edited 23rd Nov '15 10:00:42 AM by Elle

Oil Rogue has tempo elements, but overall tends to focus on managing the Emmy board with spells until it can burst them down with combo pieces. As such it's a combo deck sort of like the old Miracle Rogue.

Oil Rogue is mostly a combo deck. While it certainly can win from tempo generated by efficient removal, Violet Teacher and Piloted Shredder, the main condition is removal, card draw and survival into late game Oil combos.

There's certainly an overlap there (especially in card choices), but the play style tends to be rather different because of the focus on the late game. I consider it a wildly different beast because of that.

There's a lot of decks that sort of fit in multiple archetypes, the best example probably being Zoolock. It's either an Aggro deck, Midrange deck, Control deck, Tempo deck or Aggro Control deck depending on who you ask. It ends up being mostly a discussion of semantics.

Well, Semantics and card choice. The curve of Zoo fits agro-control and can be more aggressive depending on the aggressive cards you put in. Demonzoo is probably more midrange or midrange control given that a lot of its finishing punch is in midrange/endgame cards like Malganis, that demon that grows every time you tap (Floating Watcher?), charging Doomguards, etc.

edited 23rd Nov '15 11:09:02 AM by Elle

For anyone who did not already know, The Ruined City, the third wing of the League of Explorers expansion, will release next week, not this week. This means that we won't get the third piece of the staff until Thursday, December 3 (Americas) and Friday, December 4 (Europe/Asia).

Have you tried drawing more cards with your Oracle so that you can draw your Oracle?

My deck includes 2x Fan of Knives and 1x Azure Drake for exactly that eventuality. No dice. It's rather sad to concede the game with both Shadowsteps and both Gang Ups in your hand, forlorn and forsaken.

That said, it's also very amusing to force a Hunter to concede when you've just healed 32 damage over three turns with Brann + Healbot / Vanish.

edited 23rd Nov '15 11:51:02 AM by Fighteer

My best Bran play so far: as Shaman turn 8 with Frostwolf Warlord on a full board.

I would have been sad if my opponent had hex/BGH but as it was, he conceded as that by itself was next turn lethal.

So I got a golden Nexus Champion Saraad.

Should I dust it or keep it? I've been eying Confessor Paletress for a while now and this would give me enough dust to craft that.

Decisions, decisions.

edited 23rd Nov '15 1:29:01 PM by GutstheBerserker

Tough call. It's a fringe pick. He sees occasional play in some Tempo Mage (and possibly control Mage) decks and I think some versions of Control (or "control" Rogue have experimented with it. Paletress is more widely recognized as good if you're running a control deck though.

edited 23rd Nov '15 3:04:01 PM by Elle

Got 1600 Mana. What Legendary should I craft? I already have (*deep breath*) Cenarius, Thalnos, Leeroy, Saraad, Sylvanas, Boom, Ragnaros, Sneed, Malygos, Ysera, and a bunch of smaller stuff not worth mentioning. Oh, and everything for the Adventures.

Currently leaning towards either Antondias or something from the Priest's side of the field.