by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

This article is a continuation from yesterday.

Late Game

The late game is generally where Miracle Rogue is either drawing a ton of cards or murdering you. Unfortunately, due to the damage Miracle Rogue can inflict, there’s not a lot of in between unless they simply stall out, but that’s more a hallmark of newer players than crafty veterans. Generally, a Miracle Rogue will draw somewhere in the neighborhood of five to ten cards, hoping to find whatever pieces of the lethal damage combo they’re missing. That typically includes double Shadowstep, Leeroy Jenkins, sometimes a Cold Blood, along with whatever Eviscerates remain. In the following turns, the combo will be unleashed and you’ll die, unless you’re playing:

• Freeze Mage: Freeze Mage’s Ice Block prevents death for one turn. This can be huge if the rogue in question cannot get the mage down to low health before activating the secret.

• Control Warrior: This is very circumstantial, but if you’ve drawn into two Shield Blocks and have been regularly armoring up, there’s always a chance that you’ll simply have too much HP. The rogue will throw everything at you and then stall out. This is not a reliable method of victory, however, especially if you take any damage in the early to midgame. Clever use of Armorsmith can help you out.

• Milling decks: You don’t see this often, but there are decks out there that counter Miracle Rogue, and sometimes even Frost Mage by forcing them to ‘burn’ important cards due to hand size. Again, it’s super rare, but it is hilarious when it works. Watch as the rogue in question discards Leeroy, threatens you and then concedes. It’s good times. This is generally executed through the use of King Mukla and Coldlight Oracle.

If you’re not playing one of those decks, the match becomes an all out race. The problem there is that Miracle Rogue does a ton of damage in short, punctuated bursts. You’ll need to do whatever you can to try and quickly take them out.

Overall Strategies

It was mentioned yesterday, but the best strategy for most decks against Miracle Rogues is all out aggression. You have to press them into dropping cards. While they might get good value of a boosted Eviscerate or Blade Flurry, it’s better than the alternative, which is them getting amazing value due to Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Every single spell you force out of their hand is a small victory.

High HP minions, along with minions that leave something behind via their deathrattle are also incredibly effective as they often require multiple cards to deal with. Cairne Bloodhoof’s an exception, however. While he can be amazing, he’s sometimes too slow. He costs too much and can easily be sapped, at which point it’s as if you’d simply passed your previous turn. You might not be able to help playing him, but try and keep track of how many saps you’ve seen.

Cairne’s nice when he sticks, but he’s generally just sap bait and a turn wasted.

Taunts are also ideal, but be sure to stagger them. It might be tempting to drop a bunch of taunts all at once and say ‘come at me bro’, but this is a poor decision if you haven’t seen Deadly Poison and Blade Flurry yet. Rogues feast on decadent plays, so don’t become a statistic. Play aggressively, but also play intelligently.

Decks to Play Against Miracle Rogue

Again, sometimes Miracle Rogue will just win, but here are some decks that have decent odds. If you know of one not included, definitely add it here.

Reynad’s Midrange Hunter

RDU’s Dreamhack Freeze Mage

Zoo Warlock  (This has seen a couple of updates, but it largely depends on the meta, and the preference of the user. Miracle is technically seen as the winner in this matchup, but similar to Miracle Rogue, sometimes Zoo just wins)