So I was trying a Pirate Rogue over lunch, and I think it’s a bust.
Dang.
and I crafted those stupid southsea captains too
Does anyone else find the rogue class really badly designed? You more or less sit there doing nothing while the rogue plays card after card having various effects on you and your minions. There’s rarely any board control or progression like you have with other classes, just a black box of spells with various effects that happen while you sit there helplessly. It’s no fun to play against and I hate coming up against rogues. Even if I win, it was just an annoyance that I got past.
if you played WoW you’d understand. you’ve just described a common experience encountering rogues while playing solo in the wild.
i think the design adds complexity to the game; like heroic bosses, some simply requires a different tack to defeat. against miracle rogues, their biggest(?) weakness is the limit to their damage output.
You mean like miracle rogue? Just gotta count cards and know what your opponent can do.
You don’t see the board being developed, true, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know what he’s going to do, and how to stop him.
To understand the miracle rogue, you need to understand his win condition. He wants to keep his hand full of spells, so that he can play a Gagetzan, conceal it / combo it with preparation and “free” spells to cycle cards, so that he can dig for his finisher (generally some form of charge + shadowstep + cold blood, or Malygos).
So, you need to either disrupt his digging or his finisher.
Put early pressure up. Miracle Rogue has problems if you take him too low in the early game. Sure, he can backstab/eviscerate your stuff, but that’s just fewer cards he can combo with his Gagetzan to cycle. If he goes into turn 6 with a 4 card hand, he’s pretty much done. Even if one of those cards is Gagetzan, he only has 3 cards to cycle with, and won’t be able to collect his combo pieces in time.
Keep your taunts for after the big Gagetzan clear. If he’s out of saps, or if you have more taunts than he has saps, he can’t pull off the big charge combo.
Gagetzan costs 6 now. Keep an eye out around turn 6, if you can deal 4 damage through stealth (random damage like deadly shot, flamecannon, or even ogre brute, or AOE like Auchenai + Circle) keep it for that turn. Once Gagetzan comes down and conceal, BAM. No more cycling for you!
If he doesn’t use his weapon on an obvious target, he’s setting up for a blade flurry. Don’t give him the wipe, only play minions bigger than his weapon.
Keep in mind the amount of damage charge combos do. Southsea Deckhand is the popular choice at the moment, so for 3 mana southsea + cold blood + cold blood is 10 damage. If you’re hovering around 15 (also consider weapon damage and eviscerate) time to heal up / taunt up.
EDIT: And if you get to turn 8+ and haven’t seen a preparation, or if he cycles with Gagetzan with no preparation, then it’s likely a Malygos miracle, Turn 10 Malygos + prep + eviscerate/sinister strike finisher. Taunts don’t help against them, and they don’t care about wasting their saps, so just keep throwing stuff on the board and bleed them out of their eviscerates, so that they don’t have enough ammo for the Malygos finisher.
Isn’t miracle pretty much dead?
I’ve decided that that feeling of unfairness is just a part of the game. They need that feeling to be able to sell their product. I shouldn’t begrudge them making my casual player life hell when they need to get people to buy stuff to make a living.
I ran into a mech deck a couple times tonight. It was brutal. If they get a good draw, they’re all but unbeatable. It’s like a aggro deck on steroids. I think I’ll need to build a deck around Consecration or Flaming trap to deal with them.
And then I realize that that’s more than I ever want to deal with for a game. C’est la vie.
I know there are ways to countering it, I’m just saying I don’t find it enjoyable. Even if I won every game with rogues from here on out, they would annoy me, because I just sit there for 2 minutes every turn while shit happens to me, I’m barely involved, and it mostly comes down to whether his combos all came in for his draws. It’s just an annoying, non-interactive playstyle.
I just had a particularly ridiculous match. Two priests that had a lot of on-heal procs. We both put out two northshire clerics, and he had two of the minions that does 1 random damage to an enemy when any unit is healed. So we ended up getting slightly damaged, both of us used prayer of healing when lots of minions were damaged, and by the 4 mana turn we both had full hands, and on turn 5 I think I burned about 8 cards and him 6. By turn 6 I had a ton of cards destroyed and I was down to about 8 left in my deck. If my northshire clerics hadn’t died, I’d be eating fatigue by turn 7 or 8.
Well… I can understand why you say that, although I like playing as/against miracle myself. It’s a different sort of game, where you have to use your resources at specific times of the game, rather than just whenever it’s the most value.
That said, it seems like Blizzard agrees with you, since they nerfed miracle pretty hard, and introduced a lot of counter cards like flamecannon etc. Miracle is probably dead, I think.
After making pirate and rogue decks that no one uses, I think they might’ve gone overboard and made mech decks too good. What’s the word on that with people who play competitively?
Lots of complaints about mech aggro. I’m not sure if it’ll be too good in the end, but for now it seems to be the archetype to beat b
I meant to say pirate and murlock decks. Previous neutral synergy decks were poor, so I think they may have gone overboard. I wonder what classes work best with mech decks - my guess is warlock and shaman. Maybe paladin.
In other rogue hate news, I don’t know how to handle the assassin’s blade. It has 4 charges and 3 base damage. But a rogue can easily apply 1 or 2 deadly poisons to it, making it a 7 damage 4 charge weapon for 28 total damage. (More with minions like the auto-barber). And they can use the last charge on bladeflurry, to inflict 7 damage on everyone. Other than carrying a swamp ooze in all decks in case I’m up against it, and hope I draw it at the right time, what can you do?
Edit: And they get two of them. So two swamp oozes per deck.
I tried Arena for the first time since G v. G. When building your deck, load up on the mechs. They’re practically forcing them on you, and you’re more than likely to be able to synergize at least a couple of them. It’s actually quite pathetic.
Also: Is it wrong of me to love the Mini Mage? I don’t think he’s good value unless in the right deck, but I can’t help but smile every time he shouts “Death from the shadows!!!”.
Almost no decks run 2 copies of assassins blade, because the second copy is a completely dead draw if you already have one in hand or equipped. At 4 durability, it means a dead card for at least 4 turns or more, and that’s just crippling.
I have a golden rogue, most of the wind coming from a tempo style rogue that ran assassins blade, and I’ve had a 7 damage blade fewer than 10 times, I’d wager. Deadly poison is just necessary to take care of early minions, and by turn 6-7, if you managed to collect those 3 cards out of 30, you’re just crazy lucky.
So apart from the hard counter of ooze or Harrison, there’s also the soft counter of forcing the rogue to spend his deadly poison or face an insurmountable board by the time he can pull off his turn 7 combo, and even if he does have the combo, make sure he dies before he can hit with the 7 damage too many times.
Or make him waste his charges on a sludge. Or race him, 7 damage is just 2 minions on the board.
Yes. It is wrong and you should feel bad.
Ancient Mage is just so much better. “I… I forget things”. It’s like putting your grandpa in your deck!
It’s the Mini-Mage’s excitement that gets me. The greatest thing that has ever happened to him was my playing his card. It’s cool.
Although I am enamoured with the poor Kobold who shouts: “You no taken candle!” too. And the Apprentice Sorceress who asks “Me?” when it’s her time to attack.
I started this a while back and play every now and then. I’m still working through Normal Practice on all decks (completed Priest, Shammy, Hunter) so if anyone else wants to nub it up with me hit me up.
Preyerman on Bnet.
Is Hearthpwn the current go to resource? It doesn’t look like Icy Veins has up to date decks right now, but since I have basic cards it is good enough for me for now.
ETA: Preyerman#1945 is what is says on my Friends pane.
I may try rogue just to get a feel for it, and how to beat it. Are there any rogue decks that use Leeroy well, if the auctioneer sucks/miracle road bad now?
The iron sensei seems like a really good class unit if you’re going to run a mech deck - +2/+2 to one of your mechs every turn.
I just realized! We haven’t shared our battlenet tags or anything. Add me if you like, TabbyNat #1285. We can spectate each other, that’s cool.
I’m actually running a mill/bounce rogue with cold light oracle and mountain/clockwork Giants now, and a midrange pirate rogue. Aggro pirate rogue didn’t work, but midrange is pretty good actually. Still, it’s too fair. If I decide to ladder for real those season, I’ll probably craft moltens and start playing handlock for real.