The Ashes of Outlands set provides Rogue with two major themes: Stealth and Secrets. In terms of flavor, both of these are very much within the Rogue arsenal, and as a long-time advocate for more of a representation of Stealth for the Rogue class, I couldn’t be happier to see it arrive.
There’s more to life than flavor, though; if there wasn’t we’d just gorge ourselves on more junk food than we already do. No matter how flavorful the mechanics of a set, we need to be concerned with how much they win too, as it’s difficult to have fun when you’re losing game after game.
In terms of competitiveness, one of these packages has my attention while the other does not. Specifically, I think the Stealth package offers something strong, while the Secret package isn’t there yet. The reasoning here can get complicated, but it can be boiled down to this simple message: the Stealth package offers you cards that are independently better at gaining and maintaining board presence. They’re proactive and allow you to plan without interference from the opponent. By contrast, the Secret package involves you playing conditional cards that do not end games by themselves and provide your opponent with opportunities for counterplay. While the payoffs may look juicy, the secrets themselves can get in the way of helping you achieve that goal.
(For a more in-depth coverage of my thoughts on the Secret package, feel free to check out my other post on it here)
Nevertheless, let’s see what’s cooking for Rogue and talk about what I’m excited to play with day 1:
Stealth Galakrond Rogue
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I feel confident that Galakrond Rogue will still be good (and that will end up surprising very few people). The deck I want to try undergoes a series of changes from last meta’s lists, however. With the loss of Leeroy Jenkins to the Hall of Fame, I feel less inclined to run Shadowstep. It was already a weaker performer in the deck, and losing some of its premium synergy doesn’t help. SN1P-SN4P and Zilliax both rotate out, and I also removed the Boompistol Bully (tech choice) and Faceless Corruptor. This leaves a lot of room for new cards.
In their place I added a Stealth package, including the new (and very powerful) Spymistress, Skyvateer, Akama, and Escaped Manasaber. What’s nice about these minions is that they can all be dropped on curve without any combo activation without giving your opponent a chance to interact with them. This cuts down on clunky draws and gives you a more consistent early game. These six stealth minions will hopefully provide enough activators for the Greyheart Sage, which provide even more cycle with tempo to help find your best cards that end the game. At the same time, we are managing to lower our mana curve a bit to help make up for additional card draw the deck now has access to, as having too many cards in hand can become an issue in some games for the deck.
Increases in early-game consistency and board control should help make up for the loss of burst damage and healing rotation hits the deck with. It’s not clear yet whether the deck will want another Manasaber, Sap, or Eviscerate, but those are our flex spots.
Stealth Aggro Rogue
- 0Backstab2
- 0Shadowstep2
- 1Pharaoh Cat2
- 1Spymistress2
- 2Ashtongue Slayer2
- 2Eviscerate2
- 2Skyvateer2
- 3Akama1
- 3EVIL Miscreant2
- 3Edwin VanCleef1
- 3Greyheart Sage2
- 3SI:7 Agent2
- 4Waggle Pick2
- 6Flik Skyshiv1
This list is a less-tested option, and it doesn’t contain Galakrond, so its success is by no means guaranteed. Nevertheless, it does represent another in the long-line of time-tested strategies that involve hitting your opponent in the face fast and hard.
With six one-cost minions, it’s hard for this deck to miss getting on board early. From there you want to aggressively push tempo and damage with the Ashtongue Slayer, 0-cost Frenzied Felwing, burn, and weapons. You’ll need to get your opponent dead quickly, as you cannot go toe-to-toe with many late-game strategies.
The deck runs a package of seven Stealth minions to activate Ashtongue Slayer consistently and use Greyheart Sage as refill. You’ll need many as attacking takes them out of stealth and turns off the synergies. Shadowstep can be used flexibly for more burst with the Ashtongue Slayers, more resources with EVIL Miscreant or Sage, additional removal with Maiev Shadowsong, or re-stealthing minions to avoid opponent interaction or activate inactive synergy cards. Waggle Pick has a similar set of roles, but it pushes more face damage in the process.
The flex spots in this list are SI:7 Agent, Shadowstep, and – believe it or not – Edwin VanCleef. While many people think Edwin is the nuts, a lot of his current power has been tied to Galakrond and King Togwaggle. Access to mountains of cheap resources lower the risk of going in on an Edwin and getting it removed, and things look worse for him in this deck when you aren’t passively generating tons of resources. I’d keep my eye on all these cards to help refine the list. The Steps can be nice, but are conditional. SI:7s are just burn/tempo tools, but aren’t a necessity by any means.
Stealth Secret Rogue
- 0Backstab2
- 1Blackjack Stunner2
- 1Spymistress2
- 2Ambush2
- 2Ashtongue Slayer2
- 2Bamboozle2
- 2Dirty Tricks2
- 2Eviscerate2
- 2Shadowjeweler Hanar1
- 2Skyvateer2
- 3Akama1
- 3EVIL Miscreant2
- 3Greyheart Sage2
- 6Flik Skyshiv1
This list is nominally similar to the aggressive list above, but it swaps out a full 11 cards to try and run a different (and full) Secret package. You lose the value of Pharaoh Cat for the early tempo snowball of Secretkeeper. The one drops can push initial damage and, when backed up with a Bamboozle, possibly snowball an advantage into a win. For that reason, it’s probably going to be your best early-game secret, while Dirty Tricks is more for reload later in the game and Ambush can help you stay ahead on a board you’re already winning in the later turns (though it can be OK against certain aggressive opponents).
If you can establish threats on board, the Blackjack Stunner can be backbreaking for many opponents who rely on minions to come back. Shadowjeweler Hanar can add some value in the late game, though he doesn’t pose much of a threat in the early stages (since you want to spend mana on minions and not secrets). Crucially, both of these secret-synergy minions require that you have secrets around and, since they can be easily triggered by the opponents whether they are trying to or not once you play them, it’s sometimes going to be best to hold a secret back in the hand until later turns when you can get the payoff with Stunner. Play all your secrets too quickly and you turn your Stunners into 1/2s that don’t do anything. That’s a problem for a deck that risks running out of value before it closes out games.
Make sure you establish a board before you start playing Secrets if you can. If you don’t already have a lead, the secrets will be less liable to prove useful.
JalexanderHS
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Do the Control Warrior theorycraft next too.. please. pretty please.
(or maybe Spell Shaman)..
Stay safe, and wash your hands folks.
My neighbor just survived corona, and I’m terrified to go outside.
As I see two good stealth minions come from the adventure. Are there any replacements or should I go and invest in the adventure? 700 gold per chapter is too much for an f2p player but without those cards I lose the potential of stealth package
I would first wait to see if this Stealth package will really be viable. And even if it will, you can try playing a budget Stealth minion instead, e.g. Jungle Panther, Stranglethorn Tiger or Wasteland Assassin. Probably Jungle Panther given that Stealth decks will most likely lean towards aggression so a lower curve would be better.
It obviously won’t be optimal, but you might test the deck out and see whether you want to commit to buying all four Chapters of Galakrond’s Adeventure.
After reading your article about Galakronds Awakeking Adventure (great guide btw) I see that the adventure is maybe a good investment. 700 gold per chapter is the gold I get one whole week which is not so harch especially in the first month of the expansion where everything is liquid with the decks.