maximum meme

You’re witnessing peak meme Rogue. Rogue’s burgle archetype got some great support from Rise of Shadows, some of which is so powerful it’s going to see play in decks that aren’t even centered around burgling. This deck goes all in on a maximum burgle plan. It’s unlikely that this is the best way to go in terms of winrate, but let’s try to remember that this game is supposed to be fun.

Gameplan

We’re using Spectral Cutlass and the new burgle payoff cards to stay in the game for long enough for us to play Academic Espionage with Tak Nozwhisker or at least Sprint and start generating a ton of value/tempo. If that’s not enough, we have Tess Greymane as a final value bomb. Plus Spectral Cutlass itself can represent a win condition if it isn’t removed, as it can get very large and hit our opponent in the face.

This list is pretty weak to weapon removal, but if we manage to play Academic Espionage with some draw, we can manage without it. The deck is also weak vs. fellow Rogues, especially ones that aren’t using a burgle package, as only Hench-Clan Burglar can give us non-Rogue cards to activate our synergies. Luckily we’ll be drawing him a lot with Raiding Party, but both of these weaknesses are still going to give this deck a hard time on ladder.

Card choices

• Pilfer – it’s no Hallucination, but it’s a weapon charge and it can activate Underbelly Fence on curve.
• Underbelly Fence – strong removal, especially if you do manage to get it on 2.
• Raiding Party – grabs us our weapon, burgle generators, and weapon buff. There could not be a better engine for this deck.
• Cutthroat Buccaneer – x2 Raiding Party needs 5 pirates, and I prefer buffing our weapon to a free Dread Corsair. With Valeera the Hollow rotating, we need more buffs for Spectral Cutlass because we can’t reuse them.
• Academic Espionage – often hard to survive losing this much tempo, but if you do, the payoff can be extremely satisfying.
• Zilliax – we want to get to the late game, and this sustain tool has the great perk of being Zilliax.

• Tak Nozwhisker – A lot of people seem to be talking about this guy and the concept of “value Rogue” in general with optimism. Let’s get one thing straight about this card: it’s terrible. Now, sometimes you’re going to get to turn 10 without needing to play your Preparation or Academic Espionage and you’re gonna slam this on the table and play that combo, refill your hand with discounted cards, and even play 2 of those powerful 1-cost cards to get your tempo back and buff your weapon. When that happens it’s totally sweet. That’s why he’s in this deck; the goal of this deck is to be totally sweet, irrespective of whether that wins the game. But most of the time this card is dead and taking up a card slot in your hand doing nothing. Cards that are terrible without their combo are generally terrible cards, unless the combo wins you the game outright. And this is no Mecha'thun.

• Tess Greymane – people have been including this in burgle Rogue for as long as it’s been around. She seems like a great payoff/finisher, especially if you watch a lot of Kibler highlight videos, but she’s consistently been the lowest drawn winrate card in the decks she’s in. This is a great example of a win more card. When there are a lot of good things to cast from Tess Greymane, it means you’ve gotten a lot of strong cards from your burgles that game, which usually means you’re already doing well. Otherwise, she’s a dead draw. Of course sometimes the value bomb will save you in long grindy value games, which may be more common this expansion than in the year of the Raven if value decks are able to breathe now that death knights rotate and OTKs are less prevalent; but it’s likely that this and Tak Nozwhisker will be the worst performing but most fun cards in the deck.

Other Options:

• Togwaggle's Scheme – basically just another way to use Tak Nozwhisker. Running more bad cards to combo with other bad cards will certainly make the deck worse, but it’s pretty cool when you fill your hand/deck with your opponent’s Captain Hooktusk.
• Sap – playing 2 of this over Tak Nozwhisker and Tess Greymane might improve your winrate by letting your big weapon hit people in the face more often. But you’ll certainly have less fun.
• Edwin VanCleef – dropping one of those Saps for this gives you another win condition. Edwin loves to play with Preparation and 1-cost Academic Espionage cards, but he’s definitely less of a meme.
• Face Collector – another way to steal non-Rogue cards in the Rogue mirror. Worth some consideration, but not too much.
• Myra's Unstable Element – sounds good when you have Academic Espionage to follow, but when you do that you’re basically front loading 9 mana to do nothing and waiting for your payoff. That’s a lot of tempo to lose. Very powerful when you’ve already played one Espionage and you have another one (or an upgraded Togwaggle's Scheme) in hand because the 1-cost cards offset the tempo lost; but generally I think that interaction isn’t as good as it seems.
• Ravencaller – obviously a 3 mana 2/1 sucks, but it’s another way to get charges vs. Rogues.
• Gadgetzan Auctioneer – another way to draw your 1-cost cards from your deck after you play Academic Espionage. A reasonable budget alternative to Tak Nozwhisker and Tess Greymane. Actually, just a reasonable alternative in general.

It’s pretty hard to find room for many changes unless you cut the Academic Espionage package, which means you’re going all in on the weapon as your win condition. You could try something like:

• -2 Academic Espionage 
• -2 Sprint
• -1 Tak Nozwhisker
• -1 Tess Greymane
• +2 Ravencaller
• +1 Face Collector
• +1 Edwin VanCleef
• +2 Sap

but it will probably be less fun, and not much better.