Maly Rogue II

Descent of Dragons has given us Umbral Skulker, which allows us to play dozens of cards in a turn through coin generation and finish the game with the historically terrible Spectral Pillager. What a world!

The Combo:

Play Spirit of the Shark, play multiple Umbral Skulkers, either by having both copies or Shadowsteping one (or both), play a million coins, play Spectral Pillager for 2 million damage.

Hand size management is extremely important because having too many cards in hand means you don’t get as many coins from Umbral Skulker. For example, with 9 cards in hand, you still have just enough mana to play Spirit of the Shark, Umbral Skulker, Shadowstep, but you’ll be 1 mana short of getting out the final Spectral Pillager with two Umbral Skulkers. With a full hand you can’t do the combo unless you have multiple Shadowsteps or a combo piece is discounted. It’s often better to be inefficient with cards and get them out of your hand than to make sure Antique Healbot heals the full 8, or a Kobold Lackey has a good target.

Other options:

• It’s possible to build this with Evasions. They’re cheap to get out of your hand, they can help you not die, and if you replace Antique Healbot, you’re more likely to get combo pieces from Elven Minstrel; it sounds pretty good, but in my experience they are hard to use well and usually only heal a little damage.
• You could also add second copies of Devoted Maniac or Shield of Galakrond, but I found they often contributed significantly to the hand size problem by generating extra cards at inopportune moments.
• Vanish is sometimes unwieldy as the list prefers Counterfeit Coin over Preparation, but when it’s good nothing else will do. Drawing into a 0-cost Vanish has saved many a game with this list.