Malygos Miracle Rogue

Are you tired of having lethal set up with Leeroy Jenkins, only for your opponent to have an annoying amount of taunts? Having trouble getting over the hump versus Hadronox Druid? Is Saronite Chain Gang ruining your day? As well all know, taunt is cheat, and luckily there is an answer: the Essence of Magic himself, Malygos! 

Unlike other Malygos Rogue lists, we aren’t running Kobold Illusionist and we aren’t trying to burn our opponent down from 30 (though with perfect draw, we can). Rather, Malygos is your burst finisher, filling the role of Leeroy Jenkins in other Miracle lists. This makes the deck much more consistent then Kobold Illusionist variants. 

Card Choices

Most of these cards are pretty standard in Miracle Rogue, so lets talk about the weird inclusions and how they help our game plan: 

Malygos: The main reason to run Malygos over Leeroy is simple: your burn spells don’t care about taunts. Plus, he can sometimes stick around for another turn, which is bad news for your opponent, but good news for you! 

Sinister Strike: Effectively 8 damage for one mana? Sign me up! We only need one copy thanks to Valeera the Hollow‘s hero power, and only having one keeps it from cluttering up our hand too much. 

Razorpetal Lasher: With Malygos on the board, your Petal is a 1 mana Fireball. But it can also help remove minions or cycle with Auctioneer. The Lasher itself is an alright body as well, not ideal, but okay. 

WANTED! This card isn’t great, but gives you a lot of flexibility. Most of the time you want to save the Coin it generates to facilitate a big burst turn with Malygos, but you can also use it as a combo activator or cycle in a pinch. 

Valeera the Hollow: Valeera’s hero power is incredible for maximizing the burn you have. Whether you’re copying Eviscerates or Sinister Strikes, she’s great for late game value. Her battlecry can also be a game-saving panic button, buying you an extra turn to piece together burn damage. She has slight negative synergy with Hench-Clan Thug, but by the time you play her, you typically don’t need him anymore.

Strategy

For the most part, this plays like your average Miracle Rogue deck. In fact, you can win some games without even playing Malygos. Against Aggro your gameplan is unchanged: survive by any means necessary and hope the Spiders will lead you to victory. 

Against Control and other Combo decks, you have to be much more aware of your burn (especially the Eviscerates!) as well as your Preparations then you might in regular Miracle Rogue decks. Both are extremely important to your end-game burn plan, and should not be used lightly. 

Also make sure to keep track of whether your opponent will likely be running single target removal, and keep track of what they use. Sometimes slamming Malygos is the right play, even if you don’t have game-ending burst that turn. 

Card Replacements/Flex Spots

Right now I’m running a single SI to make room for Hench-Clan Thug. The biggest flex spots are probably the second Shiv, as well as the Razorpetal Lasher. Sometimes the petal was useful, but other times it just cluttered my hand. Shiv is good, but maybe other options are superior. Cards to consider in their place would be Bloodmage Thalnos or Edwin VanCleef, or maybe a second copy of SI. 

Let me know what you think in the comments!