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After testing this deck for a while, I’ve climbed from rank 14 to rank 10 without losing once. Unlike regular Thief Rogue which features a tempo play style with Hench-Clan Thug or Fire Fly, this deck plays more with Spectral Cutlass and the new addition to this archetype, Academic Espionage. This is a greedy value deck, nothing more, nothing less.
Now you’re wondering, why no Fire Fly? It’s such a great card. And my answer to that is yea, it is, but this deck doesn’t need it. Now I know Fire Fly can be used for turn 1 early trades, or combo with Vilespine Slayer, but that’s all. You can survive the early game if you have basic game knowledge.
Anyways, back onto the topic at hand. This is a hyper value deck that will never fatigue even if a Warrior uses 2 Dead Man's Hand, shuffling 9 cards into their deck. You wanna know why? Because you can shuffle 20, 40 or even 80 cards so you don’t even need to worry about dying from fatigue! What about your health you say? Well, my friend, that is what Spectral Cutlass is for. With a possible 5 or even 9 attack weapon with lifesteal, it would be extremely difficult for your opponent to kill you, and with the possibility of other weapon enhancements from other classes … prepare for trouble and make it double. ┻━┻ ︵ ＼(‘0’)/／ ︵ ┻━┻
And also did I mention you can win with crazy means instead of playing just a fatigue game. Well look no further as Tess Graymane will surely keep you entertained and help you out in those sticky or more importantly, boring situations. This is why Hallucination and Blink Fox, and the important Academic Espionage are in the deck so you can throw more value at your opponents face.
There are apparent weaknesses though which is vsing against another Rogue player. Out of the many matches from the release of the Boomsday Project expansion, I have not yet vs against another Rogue on ladder since everybody was testing out new decks. However, with previous experiences from other expansions, you will definitely be at a disadvantage. You’re Spectral Cutlass won’t be buffed by any cards you play from your thief cards and it also won’t activate Tess Greymane. However, that doesn’t mean you’ve lost the match! Use all your skills and win that game and show them who’s boss! ﾍ(*ﾟｰﾟ)┌θ)ﾟﾛﾟ)ﾉ
Update* After testing this deck 4 days into the Boomsday expansion, I decided that Toxicologist wasn’t good enough at rank 8 and above. It allowed for early trades and buffs Spectral Cutlass up, but that’s all. It’s like my example with Firefly. It’s a good card, but I can win games without it. That’s why I made modifications to this deck.
- Switched 2x Toxicologist for 2x Fan of Knives
- Switched 1x Cavern Shinyfinde for Vanish
I switched to Fan of Knives because it’s an amazing card that can deal with a wide board early game, and draw cards which is what this deck wants. Without any fuel to keep the durability of Spectral Cutlass up, what’s the point of having a high attack lifesteal weapon? And I also replaced Cavern Shinyfinder with Vanish because it’s an extremely powerful card. It can clear many pesky boards in this new meta, like Deathrattle Rouge, Token Druid, Even Shaman, etc.
Mulligan Strategy
VS FAST DECKS
- Backstab – 2 damage for 0 mana is a very important tempo swing and/or combo activator in the early game when you’re fighting for the board against an aggressive opponent.
- Cavern Shinyfinder – Can be played on curve and search for Spectral Cutlass which will increase survivability.
- SI:7 Agent – If you’re on the coin or can trigger this on the third or fourth turn, it’s a great way to control the aggro, but it’s otherwise a 3 mana 3/3 which can trade.
- Fan of Knives – It’s just a great card in general which can give that game-changing card in some matchups such as Consecration, or Lightning Storm
VS SLOW DECKS
- Fal'dorei Strider – Since you’ve got a lot of time to work with, setting up your spiders early on should be your primary goal. You don’t really get punished when all control decks do is preparation in the early game.
- Cavern Shinyfinder – Since the early game is slow, getting your Spectral Cutlass is essential in these match-ups and the earlier you get it, the better.
- Hallucination – After playing so many games, I’ve come to the conclusion that this card is ridiculously strong against slow decks. You need a combo activator for Vilespine Slayer against Mountain Giant which is insanely important, and also it gives that additional card against control match-ups that CAN win you the game.
Of course, these mulligans shouldn’t be followed to the book so decide depending on the circumstances. Especially against OTK decks.
Strategy most of the time
Vs Aggro Decks
These games are all about survival! You’ll have to keep on the board until either your Vilespine Slayer or Fal’dorei Strider’s spiders can swing it back your way. This is not an easy task which is way getting Spectral Cutlass through Cavern Shinyfinder is important. Do not go for face if you are in the danger zone (10-15 health) and keep trading minions to control the board. And also don’t be afraid to swing your buffed Spectral Cutlass if you have another Cutlass in hand. This match-up is all about SURVIVAL! Remember that.
On a side note, never play Academic Espionage in these match-ups as they can be a death sentence. This is a double-edged sword as it can win you games with a 1 mana Tirion Fordring, or a 1 mana Lynessa Sunsorrow
Vs Control Decks
This is where the archetype really shines. I mean… getting 20, or 40, or even 80 of their cards for 1 mana will essentially make your opponent bleed tears. The crux of this archetype is the two copies of Academic Espionage and Tess … so go drown your opponent in all that value when they have no cards left.
Since your opponent is a lot slower, you’ll have time to set up your combos either via Fal’dorei Strider’s spiders or by shuffling a bunch of cards in your deck by combining Valeera the Hollow and Academic Espionage. You can go ahead and be on the offensive and you don’t need to worry about your deck going empty ever again.
However, there are certain situations where you’ll vs against an OTK deck where the only option you have is to face. But you can delay them with a specific card which can win you the game. (psssss, check substitutions to destroy Druid and Warrior players)
Update* Do not use Academic Espionage when you have no card draw in hand. The cards you get might not be the greatest so it’s safer if you can draw multiple cards at once.
Card Substitutions
- Fire Fly – Now like I said before, this card is amazing in this deck and can be used as early trade fodder or combo activators. It is also a solid cheap card which can be used in other decks as well so I highly recommend crafting it.
- The Lich King – This card is also a solid card and is extremely useful against another Rogue player. It allows Tess to activate and doesn’t make her a dead 8 mana 6/6 in hand.
- Skulking Geist – NOW this is the card that can destroy OTK decks. It has the special ability to get rid of 1 mana spells like that pesky Naturalize and stop them in their tracks. Other cards can also include Whirlwind, and Omega Assembly, or really just any good 1 cost spells. However, this will also wreck you since Hallucination and Deadly Poison are really important cards as they help Spectral Cutlass and Tess Greymane.
Special fact* Someone used Geist against me after I used Academic Espionage and the weird thing was… it didn’t get rid of the 1 mana spells so you don’t need to worry about using Geist anymore (＠￣￢￣＠). So that’s a bonus for this deck.
- Vanish – Adding another vanish into the deck isn’t a bad idea overall. It gives you extra breathing room when vsing sticky boards, and allows that extra lifesteal hit that could save your life. It can also bounce back your Faldorei Strider and Vilespine Slayer.
- Elise the Trailblazer – Another solid card in a Rogue or in any control match-up. The pack gives you an extra 5 cards which will help fuel your Cutlass and Tess, and your Valeera can put 2 packs, giving you an extra 10 cards in total. Look at all the value raining down.
- Sap – A great card that is seen in a lot of Rogue decks. This card gets rid of those pesky taunts or large minions, but beware of this card since you might never use this card in aggro match-ups.
- Edwin VanCleef – A great powerplay which can win you games by itself. It can help in the early game if you have the coin, or become a behemoth of stats in the late game. Now I wonder how big you can make it with all those 1 cost cards (;¬_¬)
- Face Collector – Now I’m sort of shaky if this card should be in here. It gives you legendaries, possible activators for Tess, and is pure value in control match-ups, but it is extremely slow and is particularly useless in aggro matches.
- Bloodmage Thalnos – Very useful if you decide to combo it with Fan of Knives and is 2 mana 1/1 with card draw. Not much to say but you might be able to combo it with 1 mana Pyroblast, Pyroblast, Pryoblast…
- Augmented Elekk – This is a new addition I found when I vsed against Pogo Rouge. It was insanely powerful and I wondered, wouldn’t this work with Academic Espionage? I haven’t tried it yet since I’m a F2P player so try it out and see. But think about all that value (º﹃º ).
Update Update
So I’ve de-ranked from rank 8 to 9 but that’s okay. It was because of this that I thought about changing the decklist again and what do you know, I’m back to rank 8. With the addition of Fan of Knives and Vanish, it really helped vs against the aggro decks and I made without losing to … ummm … rank 8 full stars???
On the 11/08 I had competed in a Fireside Gathering and this deck did extremely well, with me at the end of the day in 3rd place. I had vsed against Heal Zoolock, Magnetic Odd Paladin, Even Shaman, and won by a hair’s breadth. So although you’ll have a difficult time vsing these aggressive decks, you absolutely can still win!
So with that out of the way, I would like to pronounce that this deck is A-O-K for laddering.
Check the Card Substitutions for other more options, special tips from my personal experience, and some other fixes I made (mostly spelling and grammar mistakes).
Do you have any suggestions for this deck? Well comment it to me and I might add it to this list! And even if you don’t, comment on your experience with this deck either way. It makes me happy that a staggering 28 people have upvoted my first submitted deck (｡• ̀д•́) 人 (•̀ω•́ )ﾊﾞ
P.S I’ll post photos of matches which I had a great time in. It was extremely ridiculous and overall fun. Why don’t you post some pictures for me to see as well. Share your ridiculous games with this community!
Matches were against Big Spell Mage, Malygos Druid, Even Shaman, Control Warlock, Token Druid, Big Warrior
Conclusion
Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you for taking your time in checking this deck! I don’t know if that is actually an official staff member that commented, but if it is then I thank you guys for giving this deck a chance. Thank you once again and have a great time playing this deck (◕‿◕✿).
Looks like a fun deck just one question is it worth dusting my malygos deck for this deck?
Definitely not. There are some decks in Hearthstone that revolve around this card like OTK Druid and other similar decks.
Unless you never play such decks then go right ahead and dust it.
Well I have another acc which is Maly/Tog druid just wanna know if this deck is good enough to grind 🙂
So I kinda don’t have valeera, strider, prep, spectral, and vilespine cards, but I do have lich King, Elize, and 800+ dust (could disenchant some cards). What should I do to put cards in since I kinda wanna try this deck out.
You can replace Valeera with Elekk since you want Academic to shuffle cards into your deck. They have their pros and cons but I would lean towards Valeera because I’m bias.
Spectral Cutlass you can’t really do much about it since this deck revolves around it. You have to ask these questions first. Will you play this deck for a long time? Is it worth your dust? Will this card see play in the future? Your dust is extremely important if you’re F2P and in my opinion, you should only craft this card if you’re going to play this deck a lot.
Sap can temporarily replace Vilespine but I highly suggest you get it ASAP. It’s an amazing card for removal and you will find yourself using it in most situations.
Strider is MVP in this deck since you are preparing for the early game. Those 4/4 spiders are extremely troublesome against all decks and will help fight for the board. Like Vilespine, you should craft Striders ASAP as this card is seen in lots of Rogue Decks.
Unfortunately, there is no replacement for Preparation as most of the time you want to combo it with Sprint. A 7 mana draw 4 card is good but you don’t want to waste a whole turn drawing cards. Comboing it with Preparation will allow for more options and leave you with 6 mana left, which will allow you to do other things.
In the order of crafting cards I would suggest: Strider –> Vilespine –> Preparation –> Valeera –> Spectral
Alright, thanks 😀 I’ll first try to push higher than see if I have leftover dust to craft
Great guide, thanks for posting it!
(*≧▽≦) Thank you.
I capped my deck size with this deck. Managed to get my hands on archbishop benedictus vs quest priest. He had the same card aswell, so none of us were even close to fatigue. He healed twice with Warden, but had no weapon removal. Great game, great victory, great deck.
I’m glad you had a fun time with this deck 😀
The potential of each match is huge … unless you vs against aggro decks ｡･ﾟヾ(✦థ ｪ థ)ﾉ｡ﾟ･｡ then just survive!
Really fun deck. I have put in skulking giest for all the mechathun druids, also the combo priests aren’t liking him either. Please do update this deck for future use 🙂
OMG, thank you for commenting!
The reason I have not updated the decklist is because I wanted this list to act as a catalyst or the basic recipe for this deck. You can add whatever cards into the mix allowing for your own playstyle to shine through. As long as you’re having fun, then it’s all good.
Plus the cards I suggested in the substitution section aren’t budget friendly with Lich King, Elise, Edwin, and other legendaries being suggested. So do understand that I want players to create their own version of the deck using mine as reference 😀
Can you explain what you mean here: ‘Because you can shuffle 40 or even 80 cards if you manage to play another class’ DK.’
Am I missing something?
Hahaha, after discussing this matter there is a way to put 80 cards into your deck but the deck in-game caps it at 60. If you want the combo for getting 40 to 80 cards then here it is. First, you play Valeera which gets you your passive. Next turn you use Academic Espionage twice which gets you 20. Do that combo again and get another 20 which equals to 40. Now play another DK hero if you do have one. After that play Tess Graymare which puts another 40 which equals 80 cards in total. However, since the game doesn’t allow decks with a capacity over 60 so THE DREAM IS RUINED. If you ever see this post then please upvote/like this :3
Tess’ ability to play all cards from another class is based on your CURRENT hero. Which means if you get a DK card from hallucinate, fox, academic w/e and change your class when you finally use Tess you will activate all the ROGUE cards that you previously played (Spiders, fox, deadly poison, eviscerate, sprint, blah blah).
You are absolutely spot on! I was in the moment explaining how to put cards into the deck that I forgot to answer the question.
(*ゝω・)ﾉThanks for explaining it much better than I did.