Quest Rogue Deck List Guide – Witchwood – May 2018

Quest Rogue Card Choices

The tech cards of Quest Rogue are mainly focused on aggro matchups. There are three main anti-aggro options right now: Backstab, Hungry Crab, and Fan of Knives. Backstab can help against some aggro decks that do not flood the board, Hungry Crab is good in a heavy Murloc meta, and Fan of Knives helps survive token decks. The number of such cards used depends on the meta.

Another tech card is Sap, which is more flexible. It can deal with aggressive decks that have buffs and it can also help deal with Taunt minions to push more damage after the quest is completed.

Other than those differences, Quest Rogue decks largely consist of the same cards.

Preparation works with all of your spells, enabling you to go for more tempo or possible lethal with plenty of Charge minions and Prepped Vanish.

The general bounce and copy package helps complete the quest and push for damage with Charge minions after the quest is completed:

• Shadowstep – single-target bounce that makes the target cheaper
• Youthful Brewmaster – single-target bounce 
• Sonya Shadowdancer – multiple copy effect, especially useful with a Charge minion, able to complete the entire quest if played when on seven mana and the opponent has minions on the board, Sonya + four copies of a Charge minion, with one left over in hand to complete the quest the following turn
• Zola the Gorgon – single-target copy effect
• Mimic Pod – both card draw and a copy effect, does not always land on a minion though
• Vanish – returns all minions to hand, removing multiple Taunt minions or bouncing back multiple Charge minions at once – can also be used to complete the quest if needed

Then, there is the Charge minion package that is often used for lethal:

• Southsea Deckhand
• Stonetusk Boar

The card draw package helps look for bounce effects and additional resources:

• Novice Engineer
• Mimic Pod
• Elven Minstrel

The defense and freeze package buys you time:

• Wax Elemental
• Glacial Shard
• Vicious Scalehide
• Giggling Inventor

Quest Rogue Mulligan Strategy & Guide

As a Quest Rogue, you always want to keep the cards that help you complete the quest. Unlike some other Quest decks, you never mulligan your quest away. Quest Rogue lives by the quest, and dies by the quest.

Quest Rogue is one of the most difficult decks to mulligan with – almost all cards are kept in some situations. Look for a way to complete your quest and survive. Think about how various cards work together, and keep good fits.

VS Fast Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• The Caverns Below – Your win condition in every matchup. Don’t throw it away.
• Sonya Shadowdancer – The best card to help you complete the quest.
• Shadowstep – Bounce card.
• Zola the Gorgon – Copy card.
• Mimic Pod – Card draw, can help you finish the Quest faster or give you some useful tools. You rarely have any good T3 play anyway.
• Giggling Inventor – Helps you stall the game vs faster decks.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Vicious Scalehide – Keep against fast decks for some early board control and healing.
• Vanish – Keep if the rest of your hand is okay, can really save your life on curve.

VS Slow Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• The Caverns Below – Your win condition in every matchup. Please, don’t throw it away.
• Sonya Shadowdancer – The best card to help you complete the quest.
• Shadowstep – Bounce card.
• Youthful Brewmaster – Bounce card.
• Zola the Gorgon – Copy card.
• Novice Engineer – Card draw and potential bounce target.
• Mimic Pod – Additional card draw.
• Elven Minstrel – Additional card draw.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Vanish – Keep against decks that might drop some big minions early, like Even Warlock.

Quest Rogue Win Rates

Winrate stats are currently unavailable for this deck at the moment!

Quest Rogue Play Strategy

Win by the quest, die by the quest.

The key question is how to complete the quest, and there are several answers to it, which makes Quest Rogue a complex deck to pilot. In order to complete The Caverns Below, you need to play a minion with the same name five times. This is play, not summon, so only minions played directly from hand count (which is why Quest Rogue decks don’t include any summon effects).

Let’s start with the most straightforward plan: Novice Engineer. The advantage of completing the quest with Novice Engineer is that it draws you more cards each time it is played, and thus provides you with new opportunities to draw more bounce effects, making it easier to complete the quest. A word of warning! Do not complete your quest by playing Novice Engineer when your hand is full! The card is drawn before the quest completes, thus burning Crystal Core. Yes, we’ve seen this happen even in top-level tournament play.

The second clear plan is to complete the quest with Sonya Shadowdancer and a Charge minion. Charge into an opponent’s minion with Sonya on the board, and you get another one-mana Charge minion, and you charge it in again, and get another one-mana Charge minion, and so on. When you do this with seven mana available, you can charge four times that turn and have another one-mana copy ready in hand to complete the quest on the following turn. Variations include bouncing the Charge minion either before or after the Sonya turn, or bouncing Sonya itself back to your hand, for example with Shadowstep, which also makes it cheaper.

Another good card to bounce is Glacial Shard. In many matchups, if you can find Glacial Shard and some bounce effects, you can keep the opponent’s board frozen while you advance your quest.

Furthermore, sometimes you hit good bounce targets with Mimic Pod. Having two copies of the card already in hand to start with can make it easier to complete the quest with whatever minion you happened to pull.

A rare option is to use Youthful Brewmasters to bounce each other. This requires too much mana to do from scratch, but if you can throw in a Shadowstep somewhere along the line, it is yet another viable way.

Whichever way you go for, keep in mind how many more copies of the minion you need to play to complete the quest. Avoid leaving your final copy vulnerable on the board, because if you lose it, you need to start all over again with another minion.

It is best to complete the quest with cheap minions: Elven Minstrel, for example, is in the deck for card draw, not for quest completion. One-drops are the best, but Novice Engineers effect makes it a worthwhile target even despite its cost.

After you have completed the quest, the next question is how to kill your opponent.

There are two main strategies: either you create wide boards of 4/4 minions that enable you to push damage from board, or you win with Charge minions.

The most common strategy is to use your Charge minions, Southsea Deckhand and Stonetusk Boar, to push the necessary damage. If you have any leftover bounce effects, you can use them to add more damage, and you can also use Vanish to get rid of any Taunt minions and/or to return your Charge minions to your hand. For example, at 10 mana, you can play two Charge minions, hit face, Vanish them back to hand, and play them again to hit face again. If you have Preparation to go with that Vanish, you can play similar combos earlier or with more minions. Remember that you need to have your dagger equipped in order for Southsea Deckhand to have Charge!

One key observation about Vanish: It returns minions to hand in the order they were summoned. Any that do not fit in the hand are destroyed, triggering any Deathrattle effects. As an upside, you can burn Mountain Giants from a Warlock whose hand is very full, but as a downside, you may end up killing Voidlords and triggering their Deathrattle effects, and thus summoning Voidwalkers on the board that prevent your Charge minions from connecting to face.

You can also use Sonya Shadowdancer to good effect after completing the quest. If the opponent has any minions with five attack or more and you have a Charge or Rush minion available, you can simply attack that minion, get a copy from Sonya and attack the minion again – even the Sonya copies are 4/4 minions once your quest is done. It is possible to clear huge boards with this strategy as long as you get your minions to die to get the copies rolling. With Vicious Scalehide, it is also possible to heal a ton after completing the quest as long as the opponent has minions on the board: Vicious Scalehide has Rush, not Charge, so it cannot immediately hit face, but it can mow down minions.

If you go for board strategy, Giggling Inventor is an amazing card after the Quest is complete. Even though it costs 5 mana, it summons three bodies, two of which have Taunt and Divine Shield. Since it’s very hard to get through it, you can use it to protect your life total while you try to kill your opponent with the rest of your minions. Or you can just use it to stabilize on the board. Yet another card that becomes very powerful after finishing your Quest is Vicious Scalehide. 2 mana 4/4 with Rush and Lifesteal can be used for the board control as well as regaining health you lost throughout the game. If you’re low on health, you try to keep it alive for as long as you can – bounce it after attacking, copy it or even better – play Sonya and run it into a big minions, both clearing the board and usually getting back to full health.

Once you play Valeera the Hollow, you can pretty much go for infinite board thanks to a few cards. For example, dropping 2x Sonya Shadowdancer means that you get two copies of every minions that dies. But it gets even better – if your opponent decides to kill one of the Sonya’s, you will still get a 1 mana copy of it thanks to the other one! However, against some decks it’s worth it to play safe and bounce the second Sonya to have it in your hand whenever you need to copy some minions again. Copying Giggling Inventor is especially powerful, the copy will cost 1 mana and still summon three powerful bodies.

VS Aggro Decks

The general strategy of Quest Rogue detailed above remains the same in all matchups, but the details can vary.

Against aggressive decks, you need to survive. This often means throwing Wax Elementals on their path, and using some of your Charge minions to clear key parts of the board.

Healing with Vicious Scalehide is often crucial as well. Depending on the opponent, you may need to use the Scalehide early for healing and board control – and possibly try to bounce it to restore it to full health – or use it immediately after the quest is completed to rapidly restore your health.

Glacial Shard can also put in work. Using it to complete the quest can buy a lot of time with repeated freezes on the opponent or their minions, or both.

VS Control Decks

The general strategy detailed above still remains the same, but the emphasis against control decks is completely different than against aggro decks in the early game.

In short, you want to draw. Novice Engineer, Mimic Pod, and Elven Minstrel are you best friends as you assemble your hand to overcome the control deck’s defenses and typically destroy them with multiple Charge minions after completing the quest. Do not throw away your Charge minions against control decks, they are a key asset to push that damage once you’re all set and ready to go.

Quest Rogue Card Substitutions

A meta Quest Rogue deck costs over 8,000 Dust. It is possible to cut the cost a bit for the budget version, but some Legendary and Epic cards are mandatory and have no replacements. Also, keep in mind that replacing some of the cards will definitely have a negative impact on your win rate, and Quest Rogue games are usually very close – delaying your Quest finish by one turn will often lose you the game.

The mandatory package:

• The Caverns Below – Well, it is called Quest Rogue for a reason.
• Sonya Shadowdancer – By far the best card to complete the quest and to control the game after completing the quest. Nothing can replace this.
• Preparation – Crucial tempo card together with Crystal Core, Vanish, and sometimes Mimic Pod.

As most of the deck comprises of common cards, that leaves only a couple of expensive cards that can be replaced:

• Zola the Gorgon – Powerful card, but still just a somewhat regular bounce effect. Ancient Brewmaster can be a replacement if you really have to replace Zola.
• Valeera the Hollow – It’s great in the slower matchups, and since you play the deck mostly to win against slower decks, it’s an amazing card. However, you don’t absolutely have to run it – you can at least try the deck first without it, but your late game can get much worse. You can try running Lab Recruiter instead to shuffle some more threats (probably Giggling Inventors) into your deck for the late game.