Our Pirate Kingsbane Rogue deck list guide for The Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion features one of the top lists for this archetype. This Rogue guide includes Mulligan Strategy, Gameplay Tips, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!
Introduction
One of the most challenging Rogue archetypes is back on the menu with Rastakhan’s Rumble – Kingsbane Rogue! After the deck went down in the tier lists throughout the Boomsday meta, it now rises back up thanks to nothing less than everybody’s favorite minions: Pirates – you heard it right.
After a dominating reign of both Odd and Tempo Rogue over the last months, this deck chooses a very special and control-focused approach – just to go face at the right moments with a buffed up Kingsbane.
Let’s take a look at what cards have changed and how you should play Kingsbane Rogue in the Rastakhan meta-game!
Kingsbane Rogue Deck List
This is one of the best decks for Kingsbane Rogue in Rastakhan’s Rumble. The deck list might still get changed or refined – if it happens we’ll update it here!
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20181
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20181
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 0Kingsbane Rogue Deck List Guide – Rastakhan – December 20182
- 1Kingsbane1
- 2Blade Flurry1
- 2Cavern Shinyfinder2
- 3Cutthroat Buccaneer2
- 6Vanish2
Find more versions of this deck type on our Kingsbane Rogue archetype page!
Mulligan Guide and Strategy
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Kingsbane or Cavern Shinyfinder – You want to keep those two cards in every matchup. Equipping your Kingsbane as early as possible is important to set up your buffs over multiple turns. However, thanks to Raiding Party, you have much more opportunities to draw your weapon early, so if you don’t draw Kingsbane or Shinyfinder in your mulligan, you can still have high hopes to get it in the early stages of the game.
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Deadly Poison – This is still a good keep as you can contest early high-health board states, but keep in mind: This card is worth its weight in gold after you have played your Death Knight Hero card.
- Toxicologist – The greatest keep in every minion-based matchup. 4 stat points on turn 2 with a unconditioned weapon buff is great during early game, even if you don’t have Kingsbane equipped.
- Leeching Poison should only be a keep if you already have Kingsbane in your mulligan. We try to draw it “when we need it”, and against aggro the time can’t been any sooner than the start of the game!
- Sap – Against Warlocks, this card has been a great keep. However, we see less and less decks with early big threats like Edwin VanCleefor Mountain Giant, so Sap declines in priority.
- Fan of Knives – Facing a Paladin or Warlock? Keep it. Against everything else you may want to get rid of it early.
- Elven Minstrel is a great keep if you start with the Coin.
General Playstyle and Strategy
Vs Aggro
In comparison to older lists, this version of Kingsbane Rogue can perform way better against aggro opponents. The addition of Raiding Party provides early game minion draw, and more guaranteed Kingsbane draws when you need it.
Both Cutthroat Buccaneer and Toxicologist perform fairly weak but can soften up dangerous board states to finish it off with Fan of Knives. As mentioned in the Mulligan guide, keeping Leeching Poison when you either have Kingsbane or Cavern Shinyfinder is a must against aggro opponents. Using your Kingsbane durability charges every turn is vital so you can leech as much HP as possible.
Blade Flurry made it back into the list as well, serving as a very flexible health insurance against both low and high health minion board states depending on your weapon attack. Always keep in mind that this spell will NOT benefit off Lifesteal. Doomerang on the other hand can Lifesteal, and that is something to keep in mind when you want to double-use your weapon in one turn.
The key to success against aggro is to be not too greedy in the early game. Once you’ve established a properly buffed up Kingsbane, many aggro decks will find it hard to kill you in one turn. That is why you need to get out of the early game as healthy as possible.
Vs Control
Kingsbane Rogue thrives against a lot of current control archetypes. Especially those who can’t reliably gain HP or armor will eventually fall to our buffed-up weapon in combination with numerous hard board removals.
The playstyle versus control could not be any more different compared to playing against aggro. One of the main tools to reliably beat control decks is Valeera the Hollow. If you can, try to keep most of your weapon buffs so you can double-dip once Valeera has been played. This strategy is especially vital against archetypes like Taunt Druid or Shudderwock Shaman.
Two copies of Sprint help to draw into weapon buffs and removal as soon as possible. Your main goal should be to cycle through your deck as quickly as you can so you can “go infinite” with Kingsbane as early as possible.
Raiding Party helps with draw as well, and combined with Preparation it can be used as another source for guaranteed weapon buffs in the early game. In fact, it is the card that single-handedly brings back Kingsbane Rogue as a very viable combo archetype pick. Drawing only with Sprint and Fan of Knives felt clunky in the past, and if you didn’t draw into your Cavern Shinyfinder early enough you’d sit on your hand for multiple eternities.
As already said, try to keep the more powerful weapon buffs like Captain Greenskin and Deadly Poison once you played Valeera for even more juicy weapon attack! You will need to learn and master the way to maximize your resources, especially in unfavored matchups like Shudderwock Shaman. That combined with well-timed board removal will let you get in with two or three Kingsbane hits eventually to close out the game.
Card Replacements
Compared to other archetypes, Kingsbane Rogue has a relatively inflexible deck core. That is mostly due to the limited sources of board removal and draw, but also because the archetype needs particular cards to be able to reliably set up those huge weapon buffs. However, there are at least some cards that you could replace (or should not at all!):
- Kingsbane – The deck is named Kingsbane Rogue for a reason.
- Captain Greenskin – In the days of more and more control decks in comparison to aggro archetypes, this card became a staple in Kingsbane Rogue. Especially the turn 10 play after Valeera adds so much kill potential, and this deck needs a minion with a bigger stat-size.
- Zilliax – If the meta-game turns towards Aggro, this card could easily replace Greenskin. Zilliax is great value and can turn into a life-saving play thanks to Vanish.
- Valeera the Hollow – Somehow, players think that they can run Kingsbane Rogue without this pretty Death Knight card, and they are so wrong. Now more than ever do you need Valeera’s help to buff up your weapon and to stay flexible in the later stages of the game.
- Preparation – In older lists, Preparation wasn’t always needed, but Raiding Party makes not only Kingsbane Rogue as a whole, but also Preparation way better. It has always been a safe craft, and in this list there really is no replacement for it.
- Doomerang – You need this card for bouncing back your weapon. You could make a case for only one copy in an aggro-dominated meta, but as of now you’d run three of those if you could!
- Gluttonous Ooze – This fellow is our only tech inclusion, and it’s not very needed right now. Malygos and Togwaggle Druid don’t see a lot of play, and Odd Paladin doesn’t care about weapon removal because they have another one sitting in hand every time (at least that how it feels like, right?). However, there are still some archetypes around like Cubelock and Spell Hunter where you can play Ooze to reset tempo. You could run other tech choices like Doomsayer or Mind Control Tech if you don’t have this card.
- Doomsayer – Doomsayer has been a staple in the early iterations of this archetype. As already said, the meta became less and less aggro-focussed, and that is why it feels like you don’t need Doomsayer to make it out of the early stages of the game.
well now this entire deck is pretty much dead
life steal is op according to blizzard. life steal is the way to keep this build alive . even with life steal , this desk win rate only 52-53% according to hsresplay . now GG
Elven Minstrel can be taken away from this deck by substituting it with Dread Corsair.
1) It best uses of the raiding party, allowing to draw and remain in a more fluent tempo.
2) It synchronizes with Kingsbane itself. Its cost can always be reduced, getting mana advantage. Maybe 2 or 3 in early games while 0 mana cost for mid games onward.
3) It is the best card against aggro to help you build up some broad pressure and a 3/3 taunt which is extremely useful especially against paladin and warlock. It can saves your life while strive for more time drawing keycards e.g. kingsbane, leeching potion.
4) With the DK rogue cards, your hand’s limit turns to 8 every turn. Have you ever faced a situation when you have to use Sprint for tempo or card draw, however, your keycards may be milled coz of full hand size next turn? Dread Corsair functions as Arcane Tyrant to get a board pressure while prevent the situation of full hand size and mill for keycards.
In fact, in my opinion, the ooze can also be taken away for the second Dread Corsair. But it depends on the ladder condition, if there is too much mirror match or druids i will keep the ooze, if not just substitute two of them for better win condition against aggro.
@Tharid what’s your opinion?
Very good input! Dread Corsair definitely has a place in this list, and there are many Legend lists around that run it. I still like Elven Minstrel because it adds so much more snowball potential until Valeera comes out, and it always has been such a fantastic value tool with Coin in hand.
That is why I’d rather replace Ooze instead of Minstrel, depending on the meta. Corsair does well in control matchups, and does so much better compared to aggro matchups (it’s decent against Odd Paladin, but not as good as one would think).
Again, very well put! 🙂
Btw because of its reduced cost, it can be used as a combo activator same as backstab because of the remove of backstab in this deck , combo becomes harder to activate in early games.
Discovered quite by accident yesterday that I had a copy of Kingsbane I’d forgotten all about, so I thought I’d give this a noodle. Nasty deck. A lot of possible card subs that aren’t covered in this guide: I’ve been running Walk the Plank and I’ve seen ones using Backstab too, which is good to trigger combos.
One thing that irks me slightly though is that I feel the deck ought to run another Pirate or two just to make the most of Raiding Party. It’s probably stupid, but it just annoys me to have a card that I’m unlikely to make full potential of. Bloodsail Raider and Phantom Freebooter would seem the obvious picks if I was ever daft enough to do it.
Well, Raiding Party mainly serves the purpose of re-drawing Kingsbane! That’s everything the archetype could have wished for, although I can understand your feeling of not using the card “the right way”.
I didn’t cover Walk the Plank and Backstab because we have cards that do the same but better.
Backstab serves as a combo enabler, but we have plenty of that already. If you want to play Backstab you need to play more combo cards, and that puts the archetype into a diferent direction that in my opinion doesn’t make it better.
The same goes for Walk the Plank. If you want even more hard removal besides Doomerang, Sap and Vanish you should play Vilespine Slayer instead, as it has been played regularly in the past. Removal and stats on the board! It only had to go because we need space for the pirate package around Raiding Party!
Would there be any benefit to run 1x Envenom and 1x Leeching Poison, instead of 2x Leeching Poison?
Envenom would be a nice addition against archetypes like Taunt Druid or Control Warlock. However, we do want to have 2x Leeching Poison solely because of higher chance of draw. Feels bad, but serves a purpose.
I’m missing Greenskin and a single Doomerang. I’m willing to craft a second Doomerang, but really…I just can’t bring myself to spending a 1600 dust for a +1/+1 on a weapon and a 5/4 body. It just seems like a waste of dust.
Any good replacements you’d recommend for Greenskin?
Let me be clear, I don’t think he is a bad card. Just too expensive dust-wise for what you’re getting.
Greenskin is a really good card, but not essential. Still there is nothing like putting down two Greenskins after you play Valeera.
If you don’t have Greenskin I might try adding more removal. One card I have played around with is Walk the Plank. it is a good cheap removal spell. I have had good luck in my version of the deck with it. It might be a good discount card to replace him with. It is great for removing big targets when you don’t have the ability to combo.
Curious what other people suggest as well.
Well I can’t craft the same cards as you can’t cuz I have no dust left so I recommend you to use evisceration instead. That will do great combining with Valeera Death knight.
From time to time I play Kingsbane decks since The Witchwood. Spider version is good vs. control and slow decks overall. This one is rather optimized for weak matchups – aggro (as you always miss some combo piece, never lucky :), because the deck is already good vs. control even without cards like Eviscerate, Cutthroat, Spiders, 2nd Vilespine or even shadow reflected double Assassinate.
Mossy Horror isn’t needed post nerfs. Five mana life leeching taunt Zyliax is really nice addition. Just today I even magnetized 2 X Zilliax. Ooze is rarely needed, but you never know. What I really miss is Eviscerate (instead of Shiv?).
An advise: Control Warlocks keep their Nosferatus for when your only card in the deck is Kingsbane. Either kill them before or keep Shinyfinder to draw Kingsbane immediately .
Big Spell Mage: Either kill it fast, or save your Saps and Vanish for after t9, and you’ll be fine. Don’t let to much minions on the board, or vanish them.
Vs. slow decks, you usually wait to use Deadly Poisons with Valeera, but vs. those decks that run Geists, use them as fast as possible, including Doomerangs. You can win without those, but why not use them.
Vs. Taunt Druid, save Saps for Cubes.
Don’t play Valeera if it’s your 10th card. Look that Shadow reflection doesn’t burn your next card.
I would think Zola would work well in any Valeera deck. Wouldn’t it work well here too?
You see, when you put a card in the deck, you not only need to think whether it fits in there, but also whether you need it or not.
Yes, Zola would fit into the deck. But you just don’t need her. She doesn’t help vs Aggro at all, and slow matchups in which she’s amazing after you turn into Valeera are already in your favor.
But you can obviously try her out yourself!
As a casual f2p-player, I have a Kingsbane deck without Valeera or Zilliax, and only one Doomerang. If you are, like me, content to play in the lower ranks, it does ok without them and is a unique way to play. Ranks 15+ I think will be difficult, but there is always wild, of course.
Zilliax, I agree that you can replace it without hurting your win rate. A single Doomerang – maybe, if you have one that might be enough (two are obviously better, but hey).
But I think that the deck becomes really bad without Valeera. Of course, it’s still okay if you want to play around casually, but now you’re losing a huge win condition in slower matchups. Not only you buff your weapon slower, cycle through your deck slower, but you also can’t go infinite (which e.g. can make beating Odd Warrior harder, since you hit fatigue way, way sooner than they do and it can really stack).
Edit:
I’m stupid, of course you can go infinite without Valeera (with Rogue’s regular Hero Power). She’s still amazing at cycling faster, getting more tempo, more removals, more weapon buffs etc.
Of course you are right, I did not want to disagree with the analysis per se, but since they changed the ladder system, you do not meet full grown netdecks all the time down in the dumps now. More often you play against ragtag decks like yours. You get to play with the strategies that Kingsbane demand, but ofc you lose more often in slower matchups.
It is sometimes somewhat intimidating reading about the full grown deck and the demands when you do not want to pay that much, so I just shared the impressions I got – maybe I have to backpedal a bit about rank 18-15 :).
But you can give the deck a spin without commiting to much in terms of dust (I had the luck of drawing Greenskin) and have some fun seeing Kingsbane getting bigger.
You can go infinite wtf
You attack with kingsbane
You heropower
Kingsbane in your deck
Draw it play it swing hero power
There are multiple ways to go infinite available although this is perfectly fine as it is, depending on whether you end up needing 1 mana more / an equipped weapon for playing other cards or not. I am really only adding this to show the options: you can also replace Valeera with Mimic Pod or Rummaging Kobold. In the case of Mimic Pod, you will fatigue for one on the turn following the one in which you went for it but after that it’s the same outcome as playing it with Valeera, really.
Although I am not sure whether the copy you get from Mimic Pod retains the stats after the patch…? The one from Kobold most certainly doesn’t and Valeera’s definitely doesn’t.
But as I said I am only mentioning this because it might help one or the other player in edge cases. Technically if you don’t have DK Valeera it’s questionable whether including that will really give you more advantage over adding another super high value card (Could be Zola for example – in this example there is no Valeera, so Zola on your Greenskin is a good thing to do), maybe even something like Walk the Plank. It’s really a question of what cards you have at your disposal and what your trade-offs were when looking at the very late end game, which of course matters more in KB Rogue than in other decks. Ultimately it also comes down to your play-style and thus perceived weakness in the deck.
“Somehow, players think that they can run Kingsbane Rogue without this pretty Death Knight card, and they are so wrong.”
I take that personally! 😛 (The cite is new, right?)