by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

I was admittedly surprised when Wuaschtemme took the top spot in the European ManaGrind tournament with a Rogue deck the weekend before last. I have, along with others, complained that the nerfs the class took were a bit severe and that, in the current meta, there wasn’t a spot for Rogue players. It appears after this weekend that I was absolutely wrong, as aggressive Rogue decks won both the North American and European tournaments. I’ll get into the specifics of those decks more in our weekly ManaGrind Wrap-up, but for now, let’s ask the obvious question: What has made Rogue so dominant recently?

The short answer? Cheap removal and a mana efficient hero power in conjunction with four cards run in just about every deck right now. The even shorter answer? The meta.

Shattered Sun Cleric, Dark Iron Dwarf, Azure Drake and Argent Commander, all great cards in their own right, became prominent in the mainstream Hearthstone community with the introduction of Moon’s Mage deck. The deck, for those who haven’t faced it, is brutal and focuses on using highly aggressive creatures and damage spells such as Fireball and Pyroblast to finish off a wounded opponent. Wuaschtemme’s aggressive Rogue deck functions in a decidedly similar fashion, which is not surprising given what the decks have in common. The largest difference between the two decks is that Rogue features more cheap removal, while Mage boasts high powered lasers.

In my opinion, what’s helping Rogue shine right now is the plethora of highly aggressive decks that are, frankly, not as fast as Rogue can be. Backstab, Eviscerate and Deadly Poison allow a Rogue a lot of early options for board control. These options are, collectively, faster than most other removal toolkits. What’s more, while other decks charge two mana per use of their hero power, Rogues can pop Dagger Mastery on one turn for two mana and get two uses out of it, assuming it’s not destroyed. These factors combined allow the Rogue to claim the board first and put their opponents in a reactive state, something aggressive decks never want to be in.

The point in all of this is, don’t assume that because Rogues are winning right now they’re crushingly overpowered, or even in a fantastic spot. Rogues are, true to their nature, taking advantage of the current situation, one which features a lot of fast, DPS intensive decks with little to no stall. If the meta shifts to being slower, perhaps more midrange or control oriented with health recovery and taunt minions, expect this sort of deck to rapidly lose potency.

The only issue with that is, while the aforementioned four cards remain so brutally good, there might not actually be much reason to use other tactics, but that’s a conversation for another article. Right now, Rogues are riding the meta and proving to be highly successful in doing so.