No – the Quest sets the BASE stats to 4/4; the Pogo Hoppers get their battlecry stat buffs on top when you play them – you’re essentially giving all your unplayed Hoppers +3/+3 when you complete the quest.

I *think* I’m using something like this (I could check on my phone I guess): AAECAaIHBobCAu0Fz+ECw+oCoIADgNMCDLQBhgntAuD6Atf6As0DmwX8wQLb4wLi+AKBwgLEAQA=

It doesn’t play anything like Quest Rogue; it *is* a pogo-rogue deck but since you’re bouncing a tonne of minions anyway you can sort of complete the Quest as you go – just don’t play it turn 1; it’s a cheap spell to combo with and you don’t want people to think you’re running Quest Rogue or they’ll go all-in aggro to kill you, which the deck is weak against.

Sonya isn’t really for the hoppers – but for lots of Annoy-o-Trons; if you’re running the Quest that’s pretty much what you complete it with. Often the Giggling Inventor survives while the opponent clears the Annoy-o-Trons, just drop Sonja and throw the Inventor into an enemy minion, gives you a new, 1-cost Inventor (which summons 2 more Annoy-o-Trons). The Annoy-o-Trons summoned by the Inventor don’t count towards the Quest, but if the opponent has to plough through them to get at Sonya (which minion-based decks sometimes do) then you’re getting extra Annoy-o-Trons (1 mana 1/1 versions) in hand which do count. Sonya can also be useful with any Battlecry that’s left of the board, as long as there are things to throw it at – Vilespine Slayer for instance or Lab Recruiter.

Giggling Inventor after you’ve played the Crystal Core is nuts, even a couple of Annoy-o-Trons on board can become 8/8 Lifesteal Creatures if you use the shadow token with Zillax (who’s also buffed to 4/4 and applies those stats with magnetize) – of course you can always use Zillax with giant Hoppers… just don’t play the Crystal Core when you’ve got a few big Hoppers on the board or they *will* reset to 4/4.

The Quest, in this deck, basically just gives you an alternative win condition… sometimes you’ll complete it but not play the Crystal Core as you’re already going to win with giant Hoppers.

Quest Rogue – the deck that just will not die 🙂

I find your lack of Sonya Shadowdancer disturbing…

I’ve been mucking about with something similar except I’ve got The Caverns Below as a “Plan B” – you can get a lot of Annoy-o-Trons with Sonya behind a Giggling Inventor (T5 Giggling Inventor to T6 Sonya -> Zola ideally). You might start dropping Hoppers a little later in the game but they start at 4/4 before the battlecry… if you haven’t already won with an army of 4/4 Annoy-o-Trons that is.

2x Necrium Blade + Cavern Shinyfinder seems like overkill in a deck with literally 1 deathrattle minion; especially considering you don’t even *need* the weapon’s deathrattle trigger for the OTK (Kobold -> Prep -> Necrium Vial gives 4 mana for Shadowstrikes / Razorpetals with SDI +10, or +15 if you Backstab the Kobold).

I’d be tempted to put in more defensive or card draw options, maybe Thalnos and/or Valeera the Hollow.

It’s pretty much guaranteed to get you 6-8 extra health, depending on whether you manage to glue him to an Annoy-o-Tron or not – not amazing but not that different to when Miracle Rogue used to chuck in the occasional Antique Healbot to try and survive to the end-game.

“You can always just concede down to rank 20 if you want to play against bad decks.” …

Already done that in effect as I’ve not played enough standard ladder to keep my rank up … yes you get some bad decks at rank 20 (encountered someone who was obviously seeing how far they could get using nothing but basic cards yesterday) – but more often than not you just get net-decks piloted badly.

… and me, lulzing about with a Pogo-Rogue.

**Reduce Druid’s Defenses** <– so very much this… Druid and Rogue have been the main OTK classes for a long, long time (plus Freeze/Exodia Mage) – and the one thing an OTK class should *not* have, IMO, is really strong defensive power – they need to be tempered by aggro (and this is coming from someone who's favourite deck was Malygos Miracle Rogue back when it was good – before MSG).

Druid's massive ramp and Aviana/Kun/Malygos OTK combo were not *that* big of an issue before KFT – but with Spreading Plague, UI and Malfurion the Pestilent – further bolstered by Branching Paths (and to a lesser extent Oaken Summons) in K&C and finally Psychmelon to fix any combo-draw issues now, Malfurion has all the tools for insane combo plays, better (more reliable) card draw than Valeera AND almost as much survivability as Garrosh.

I still really like the Aviana/Kun combo – especially with Maly/Alex – but I just think Druid has too versatile a toolbox now.

Heh – you don’t have to search far, just look at the comments for the card on *this* site:
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/to-my-side/

My personal favourite being: “A hunter deck without minions??? Sorry what?”

It’s been said, many times before, HS players are bad at predicting the power level of new cards…

Roll the bones is worth considering…

I just cobbled together a Deathrattle Rogue deck; dropped a Devilsaur egg on 4 when I drew it, to Necrium Vial on 5 – spawns 4x 5/5 Devilsaurs. Opponent conceded… had a Mechanical Whelp in hand as well.

Whizbang *is* a pretty terrible card from a ladder standpoint … but I had to craft the Golden version; it’s the only way I’ll ever get to experience a full-golden deck! 😀

Personally I’d focus on one thing or the other … you’re kinda between Miracle and Bounce (Quest/Pogo) themes at the moment – with far more emphasis on Miracle. With this deck I’d probably ditch the Pogo Hoppers and Lab Recruiters for Elven Minstrels and Vilespine Slayers.

Though with the Elekk in there you could chuck in a Seaforium Bomber or two … they’re not great but they do punish Mecha-Thun decks.

True – but some games you’ve got some buffed-up hoppers on the board already when you complete the quest leaving you in an odd situation that playing the Crystal Core actually debuffs them.

Sometimes that’s worth doing though, if they’re not too big, badly damaged or you’re holding more hoppers, a Giggling Inventor, Shadowstep or even Prep/Vanish.

The quest is mainly there as a cheap combo enabler and second win condition.

… oh, and if you *do* complete the quest before your opponent gets Mossy Horror – you’ve just countered their counter as your minions are all now 4/4.

Priests will also hate you.

I’m mucking about with a Pogo-Rogue deck at the moment with The Caverns Below in it… which seems counter intuitive when you’d want to ramp up massive Pogo Bunnies and NOT reset them to 4/4 – but – having Giggling Inventor and Sonya Shadowdancer on the board at once basically wins you the game if your opponent can’t remove Sonya easily (and with Zola or Valeera the Hollow it’s quite possible to have Sonya x2 – which makes getting rid of her really awkward – apart from board clear, e.g. Mossy Horror). If she sticks around it essentially gives you an unlimited supply of Righteous Protectors until you complete the Quest.

The Caverns Below also works as a cheap combo-enabler that you’re guaranteed to start with; just don’t play it on T1.

It is a pretty terrible deck… but it’s quite fun to pull off … and it has a great annoying noise factor between the Giggling Inventors, Annoy-o-Trons and BOING BOING BOING Bunnies.

I’m actually really enjoying the puzzles – it’s a completely different pace to playing “real” Hearthstone; you just sit back, analyse the resources you’re given and try and work out the solution… the last Mirror Match with the Dirty Rats was a swine though 🙂

Might not be much replayability in it but it’s pretty good for a freebie.

I’m actually mucking about with a tempo-based Keleseth Rogue at the moment – featuring Seaforium Bomber; I’m getting about a 58% win rate with it at low ladder ranks – but the Bomber isn’t *that* great a card. It’s better when you’ve had an early Keleseth (or 2 from Shadowstep) as 6/6 or 7/7 for 5 mana is good – bonus points for having an Augmented Elekk on the board when you play it – but the bomb itself isn’t very reliable, even when you’ve dropped 4 or 5 of them in your opponent’s deck. It has won me a few games though (normally against Warlock).

The strength of the deck actually comes from the Faldorei Striders – especially if you can T3 Elekk -> T4 Strider; it’s quite possible to shuffle a dozen spiders into the deck which makes for ridiculous flood when you use Sprint.

And there’s always Leeroy with Cold Blood as a finisher.

The problem I had with Dirty Rat is that it was an omni-present tech choice – one card, available to everyone that could completely destroy any combo-deck. It kinda wasn’t worth playing with combo decks for a while as the Rat was everywhere. The thing with combo decks is that it takes a while to get all the pieces together so you know your opponent will have a rat to hand before you manage it… in the end I just started packing Angry Rag as an anti-rat tech (wasn’t a great choice but I really hated Dirty Rat and it *was* funny having your opponent concede when they’ve played the Rat too early and pulled Rag for you).

Gnomeferatu isn’t as bad as it’s got a larger pool of targets to hit so it’s less likely to destroy your combo – and it’s limited to the class you expect to mess with your hand/deck.

To be honest, I’d be fine with anti-combo tech if it was restricted like MSG “gangs” – Kabal would be a good choice I think (Mage, Warlock, Priest). Similar to MTG where it’s mainly Black/Blue that are going to play things to mess with your deck/hand or ability to play cards.

*disclaimer* I really enjoy combo decks but even I think Druid is somewhat broken at the moment. Combo decks, especially OTK combos, to my mind *should* be glass cannons – they punish Control players for being slow but leave themselves open to getting Zerged by aggro decks.

My favourite deck of all time was Malygos Miracle Rogue with Emperor Thaurissan – before Dirty Rat or Skulking Geist… I’m probably a bad person 🙂 It generally lost to aggro or if you got bad draw, but it was an absolute joy to Miracle through your deck and drop the Maly nuke soon after.

“Poor classes like odd rogue and warlock utilize their health as a resource by means of controlling the board or drawing cards. It is their identity.” … that’s actually the thing I most object to, classes losing their identity – those classes with the strongest combo potential should *not* have incredibly strong defensive tools – e.g. Rogue and Druid (before KFT).

Historically they’re the two classes that could Mill or get things out early (Spells for Rogue and big monsters via ramp for Druid), they were also the strongest combo classes (though Inner Fire Priest could count as well – e.g. with Flying Machine in GvG) – but it came at the expense of having a fairly weak early game and limited durability which meant they were vulnerable to aggro.

Losing to OTK Rogue still feels “fair” to me – OK I got nuked from 27 health by a Kobold/Malygos Rogue yesterday – but I was playing a tempo rogue and had lethal next turn from Leroy so that game could have gone either way with slightly different card draw.

Having a Druid tank up, drop Spreading Plague then nuke you from orbit feels a little like there’s nothing you could have done all game.

… but isn’t that kind of the point in the rock, paper, scissors triangle?

Aggro > Combo > Control > Aggro

Though that’s been kinda breaking down with the last few expansions…