Tempo Rogue Standard

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Tempo Rogue Standard deck .

[positiv2 952]

The changes are +2x Swashburglar, +2x Argent Horserider, -1x Loot Hoarder, -1x Fan of Knives, -2x Sap. 

I will be honest and say that I did not expect those changes. Fan of Knives is a great card against zoo and flood decks in general and I actually run 2 copies of it. Sap is a great card against control and some midrange decks, such as midrange hunter with his Savannah Highmane. This version removes a strong answer against aggro, a strong answer against control and gives you a subpar pseudo-draw minion and, somewhat reasonable, Argent Horserider. 
That said, I will keep playing the previous version with a few anti-aggro tech-ins.

[Rubidium 7]

Interesting changes.

I had to say Sap was a really hit or miss card, and I'm not sure how I feel about removing it. There were a lot of situations where it was just a dead card in my hand, and other situations where I could sap a drakonid crusher/Savannah highmane/Flamewreath Faceless for incredible swing turns.

[Paracel 165]

I think we've covered all the stuff in previous thread. Especially Swashburglar. I've just had a Rogue pulling Fronthing Berserker into Ravaging Ghoul on me, but that's once in a lifetime rekt scenario (who am I kidding though)

Sap is love, Sap is life. I can also see leaving Fan of Knives behind, as Zoo was underrepresented before the release of Spire. Mind that people experimenting with Silverware Golem / Malchezar's Imp are artificially increasing metagame share at the moment, so it may be a counterproductive measure.

[Rubidium 7]

It's also interesting that in the previous version of the guide, it was said that Gnomish Inventor was the best card to remove - but it appears Gnomish Inventor has stood the test of time and still remains in the deck.

 

I'm wondering if there is room for a single copy of Dark Iron Skulker. It seems that because of Zoolock's falling popularity fan of knives has lost some of its power but Dark Iron Skulker generally remains still largely impactful in most non-control matchups.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Rubidium

[FizzyElf 0]

Just registered to get in on this conversation.  I'm a newer player with only a couple months under my belt but this deck took me to rank 9 in my first season.

I agree with the Fan of Knives removal.  Recently it's just sat in my hand and sometimes I use it for card cycle only.  I have seen a few Warlock decks with the new cards but those seem to be heavier discard oriented minions that fan of knives hasn't helped against.  

I am super surprised, however, by the Sap removal.  I agree that it's sometimes situation, but it's a scary meta-game to go out without Sap as a Rogue right now.

I'm curious to hear more people weigh in on the Dark Iron Skulker addition.  I don't have BrM (aside from wing 1) and I'm not super willing to invest as deeply as I need to go to get that card, but every time a Rogue has deployed the DIS against me, it's totally rekt everything regardless of class.  So maybe I just need a better answer when it's played against me but it seems pretty amazing from the other side.

Anyway, just want to keep the conversation going, as I want to stay as competitive as possible with this one.  As a new player, I love common/rare legend-capable decks like this.

[Sottle 221]

The thinking right now is that Fan is a lot less necessary since i'm predicting the Discard based Zoo is going to come out on top, which does not play Forbidden Ritual. That deck, and that card, is literally the only reason you play 1 Fan.

Sap being cut broke my heart too honestly. I love that card. But i'm later to the party on it that a lot of people are. If you look at a lot of the targets in the game right now, Sap either puts a premium card back in their hand that they can get insane value from later (Fandral, Teacher, Emperor) or just doesn't net enough Tempo. Most Druids are cutting some Wars from their deck in favour of Arcane Giants and/or Malygos. The card is for sure getting weaker. It might still be good enough in this deck though, we'll see.

[mgoetze 6]

Sapping Things from Below or Arcane Giants doesn't help much, but 4 mana 7/7 is still a great target.

[Rubidium 7]

4 mana 7/7 isn't even run in the current aggro shaman lists, but there still should be enough *reasonable* targets for sap in the current meta for it to be useful as a one of. It's really nice against Midrange Hunter, that annoying resurrect priest archetype that now keeps cropping up, and even against druids you don't have to sap arcane giants just for it to be useful, sapping something like emperor thaurissan is already strong enough to make you happy to use the sap.

Another card with serious potential in this deck is Undercity Valiant, which may be more than just a budget swap. Coining this guy out turn 1 is not as good as coining out Defias Ringleader on an empty board, but is certainly a strong answer to a turn 1 2/1 minion such as abusive sergeant or fiery bat, and is probably slightly better against argent squire. Given that Shamans now have a 1 damage AoE global boardclear, the 2/1 bandit is often at great risk of just dying to random AoE, and before there were still lots of things that the 2/1 bandit would randomly die to such as fiery bat/huge toad deathrattles, swipe, ravaging ghoul, flamewaker/arcane missile pings. This card may help against midrange/aggro decks but arguably makes our already bad matchups vs control worse, but even then our matchups against midrange/aggro decks aren't that good in the first place and still have room for improvement.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Rubidium

[Valks 2,375]

8 hours ago, Rubidium said:

Another card with serious potential in this deck is Undercity Valiant, which may be more than just a budget swap. Coining this guy out turn 1 is not as good as coining out Defias Ringleader on an empty board, but is certainly a strong answer to a turn 1 2/1 minion such as abusive sergeant or fiery bat, and is probably slightly better against argent squire. 

This toss-up seems like it will depend entirely on what classes you are playing the most of. I'd prefer the Ringleader vs. Mages, for example, to avoid the simple Frostbolt removal. 

Will have to be something people choose depending on their rank's meta.

[SInMurlock 0]

Thanks a lot for this deck, it's so fun to play it. People above say that they made it to the 9 rank with this deck and I'm still at 15 :c I guess I just need a little bit more experience and luck. I wanted to ask you guys, I have Xaril and is there any possibility to put it in this deck? It's one of my favourite cards because of its originality and I really wanna play it. And could you give advice how to deal with Control Warrior? Usually I don't have a chance against them, every creature that I put getting rekt instantly. On the 6-7 turn he has got 10-15 armor with 15-20 HP and I have an empty table.

Thanks again for this deck!

[positiv2 952]

Just now, SInMurlock said:

Thanks a lot for this deck, it's so fun to play it. People above say that they made it to the 9 rank with this deck and I'm still at 15 :c I guess I just need a little bit more experience and luck. I wanted to ask you guys, I have Xaril and is there any possibility to put it in this deck? It's one of my favourite cards because of its originality and I really wanna play it. And could you give advice how to deal with Control Warrior? Usually I don't have a chance against them, every creature that I put getting rekt instantly. On the 6-7 turn he has got 10-15 armor with 15-20 HP and I have an empty table.

Thanks again for this deck!

Xaril, Poisoned Mind does not really have any synergy with the deck. This coupled with his bad stats make him an awful swap. If you want to play him, try miracle rogues.
Control warrior is a bad matchup for the deck. The main tips I can give you are - play around Ravaging Ghoul and Revenge when trading, and play around Brawl by not overextending.

[sc47 2]

I am really enjoying this deck. After good success, I can say that this deck is very much like the rogue version of Zoo.  

Just like zoo, you can flood the board with cheap annoying minions like Squire and Ringleader.  However instead of buff cards, you use tempo removals  like backstab, evis, Si:7.  

To compensate for Warlock Hero power,  you have the pesudo card draw Huckster, swasburglar and also actual draws like Drake, Loot hoarder etc while also having better board control with the daggers early game.

Coldblood and Argent commander are in similar power level to PO and Doomguard.

Edited September 16, 2016 by sc47

[Rubidium 7]

19 minutes ago, sc47 said:

I am really enjoying this deck. After good success, I can say that this deck is very much like the rogue version of Zoo.  

Just like zoo, you can flood the board with cheap annoying minions like Squire and Ringleader.  However instead of buff cards, you use tempo removals  like backstab, evis, Si:7.  

To compensate for Warlock Hero power,  you have the pesudo card draw Huckster, swasburglar and also actual draws like Drake, Loot hoarder etc while also having better board control with the daggers early game.

Coldblood and Argent commander are in similar power level to PO and Doomguard.

It's definitely substantially weaker than Zoo. I'm not sure if you can maintain a 55-65% winrate with this deck at rank 5 at the moment.

It used to be stronger but Karazhan Powercreep hasn't done as many favors for this deck as it has done for the other main meta staples.

[Valks 2,375]

10 hours ago, Rubidium said:

It's definitely substantially weaker than Zoo. I'm not sure if you can maintain a 55-65% winrate with this deck at rank 5 at the moment.

It used to be stronger but Karazhan Powercreep hasn't done as many favors for this deck as it has done for the other main meta staples.

Well said. 

Unfortunately, zoo is one of those decks that is "one of a kind". It always has a place in some form, regardless of the meta and ladder position.

[sc47 2]

16 hours ago, Rubidium said:

It's definitely substantially weaker than Zoo. I'm not sure if you can maintain a 55-65% winrate with this deck at rank 5 at the moment.

It used to be stronger but Karazhan Powercreep hasn't done as many favors for this deck as it has done for the other main meta staples.

I was just stating the similarities that this deck shares with Zoo. It is definitely a weaker version though but more fun.

 

 

[KingMe 289]

11 minutes ago, sc47 said:

I was just stating the similarities that this deck shares with Zoo. It is definitely a weaker version though but more fun.

 

 

Both decks do have a similar mindset when playing matches. Fight for board control and try to maintain some level of DoT then you usually finish with some burst at the end. I can see where you are coming from with your comparison. Personally I think Zoo is more fun though, but that's me. :P 

[Rubidium 7]

https://www.twitch.tv/ant_hs/v/90509526?t=4h32m32s

^managed to snipe (wasn't actually looking at his stream during the game) Rank 1 Legend Player Ant when he was Smurfing on EU while using this exact list of tempo rogue.

Got carried by double backstab opening hand even though he did have a nice opening hand too.

I was chatting to him on twitch and he didn't know this version of Tempo Rogue too well and assumed I was talking about Reynad's much more aggressive version when I said Tempo Rogue.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Rubidium

[Valks 2,375]

9 hours ago, Rubidium said:

Got carried by double backstab opening hand even though he did have a nice opening hand too.

Rubi representing Icy Veins well ;D

[FanOfValeera 253]

No sap in a rogue deck,  what year is it?  Unless a new card is introduced to rogue which turn minions into mice or cute bunnies,  one copy of sap should be included IMO.  Mainly because if rogue is bad with something , it is dealing with big and sticky stuff,  and even though sap does not really hurt anyone,  it could push back that 'anyone' to another turn where same threat could be taken care of more easily . Also,  then,  there is not gonna be a point where an ancient of war stands between you and sweet victory and you're like "where is my sap,  oh wait,  I dont have it".

About this deck, it could be fun to play but i think it is not gonna make it to top tiers without some love from next expansion. 

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, FanOfValeera said:

About this deck, it could be fun to play but i think it is not gonna make it to top tiers without some love from next expansion. 

This is a deck that seems like it shouldn't work, yet oh boy it does. It's fantastic.

I love laddering with it right, regardless of the lack of sap. I followed Sottle's recommended swap of Sap for Horserider when I hit a streak of horrible control decks, but honestly, after that streak I just didn't need it anymore.

I'd really say try the deck before judging it, I absolutely love it. You can watch the VOD above from Rubi as well.

[Rubidium 7]

It just seems extremely odd that one of the strongest Rogue cards, Preparation, doesn't find a home in this deck. While this deck is minion based, unlike the usual spell-based rogue, it could use some of the spell-synergy package that we see so common place in rogue just because of how powerful preparation is.

 

What are your thoughts on these changes?

-1 Argent Squire

-1 Loot Hoarder

-2 Silithid Swarmer

-2 Defender of Argus

-1 Dark Iron Dwarf

-2 Gnomish Inventor

-2 Argent Commander

 

+2 Preparation

+1 Bloodmage Thalnos

+2 Fan of Knives

+1 Shadow Strike

+2 Violet Teacher

+1 Xaril, Poisoned Mind

+2 Sprint

 

This makes the deck curve out lower but might be able to afford to do so due to the double sprint, and means that it has no taunts or heals, in exchange for more board clears and the ability to generate a lot of annoying tokens from Violet Teacher while clearing the enemy board, and a lot of decks find it very annoying to kill both tokens and violet teachers at the same time right after you cleared their board. 

Edited October 1, 2016 by Rubidium

[FanOfValeera 253]

On 22.09.2016 at 2:37 AM, Blainie said:

This is a deck that seems like it shouldn't work, yet oh boy it does. It's fantastic.

I love laddering with it right, regardless of the lack of sap. I followed Sottle's recommended swap of Sap for Horserider when I hit a streak of horrible control decks, but honestly, after that streak I just didn't need it anymore.

I'd really say try the deck before judging it, I absolutely love it. You can watch the VOD above from Rubi as well.

I'll give you a secret, I used to have a second account with another name.

Why did I say this? I was trying only cheap decks like face warrior, a weird beast druid with Wildwalker etc. and tempo rogue. I'll admit, deck carried me to around rank 10, and got way more wins than other 2, around 100 with around 58% wr  in 20 days (2 seasons ago), I could have more but I wanted to play other 2 as well. So, I believe I kinda know what to do with this deck. 

Anyways, after I decided not to use that account anymore, I just focused on what I use now, which is my main account actually. I decided to play tempo rogue, and well, ONiK meta did not treat the deck well, new additions are not useful for this deck, a pirate gets beaten pretty badly by a book, even though pirate brings the book itself time to time and etc.

Even if you use the old version of this deck (there is a list at hearthpwn), there are not much aggro decks anymore, people tend to play tempo mage and midrange decks more than aggro, so this deck lost its niche as a good counter to aggro decks.  Not sure how this works against druid decks though. Haven't seen much.

Now, I am using a tempo rogue in a different way, I have Perdition's Blade (I like it), Bloodmage Thalnos and Tomb Pillager. I play it for fun, because for me, it is the only thing this deck provides me right now.

One more thing, laddering up with a deck is just different than winning a game or two at higher ranks. First one needs consistency, and I couldnt find much with this deck

I don't think there is another deck which causes this much controversy here. And opinions are just black and white, nothing in between :)

 

 

[Rubidium 7]

21 hours ago, FanOfValeera said:

I'll give you a secret, I used to have a second account with another name.

Why did I say this? I was trying only cheap decks like face warrior, a weird beast druid with Wildwalker etc. and tempo rogue. I'll admit, deck carried me to around rank 10, and got way more wins than other 2, around 100 with around 58% wr  in 20 days (2 seasons ago), I could have more but I wanted to play other 2 as well. So, I believe I kinda know what to do with this deck. 

Anyways, after I decided not to use that account anymore, I just focused on what I use now, which is my main account actually. I decided to play tempo rogue, and well, ONiK meta did not treat the deck well, new additions are not useful for this deck, a pirate gets beaten pretty badly by a book, even though pirate brings the book itself time to time and etc.

Even if you use the old version of this deck (there is a list at hearthpwn), there are not much aggro decks anymore, people tend to play tempo mage and midrange decks more than aggro, so this deck lost its niche as a good counter to aggro decks.  Not sure how this works against druid decks though. Haven't seen much.

Now, I am using a tempo rogue in a different way, I have Perdition's Blade (I like it), Bloodmage Thalnos and Tomb Pillager. I play it for fun, because for me, it is the only thing this deck provides me right now.

One more thing, laddering up with a deck is just different than winning a game or two at higher ranks. First one needs consistency, and I couldnt find much with this deck

I don't think there is another deck which causes this much controversy here. And opinions are just black and white, nothing in between :)

I've experimented with this tempo rogue build in august, and couldn't get through rank 4 using the deck and ended up hovering around rank 5 (may be the NA meta is more suitable for this deck? I dont know.) But that was before Sottle released his list so I was still using experimental lists running cards such as the Curator, and doubting myself on whether I was right in being so confident in Swashburglar after the arguments we had on the forums. Most ladder games was with everyone else experimenting too though so maybe the ladder was easier last month.

If this deck is capable of reaching legend ranks, it would have to be extremely late in the season where it is easiest to climb, and you would need some sort of lucky streak as well probably.

As for this deck, Tomb Pillager does not really fit too well as a lot of the time the coin will simply end up as a dead cards in your hand, since this deck does not pack enough large lategame threats it can coin out or spell synergy. Bloodmage Thalnos has potential in this deck due to the backstabs and eviscerates and Perdition's Blade is a card I have hardly seen used in Rogue and have not experimented with (I don't actually have the card), but it would have negative synergy with Silithid Swarmer as you may often want to hold on to the Perdition's Blade charges.

One big thing that really hurts the deck is the number of good sap targets in the meta going down, with Tempo Mage, a deck lacking few good sap targets, and flamewreathed faceless being cut from Shaman decks and Druids running Arcane Giants. Spirit Claws and Maelstrom Portal made the matchup against Shaman a lot worse than it was before, and Control seems to have become the go-to Warrior archetype in the meta as opposed to dragon, which is a horrible matchup for this deck. 

On the positive side, this is a deck that is not getting directly affected by the upcoming nerfs in any way, but Control Warrior might become more common after the nerfs because of Midrange Hunter becoming much weaker, which would not be a good thing for this deck.

It might be worth trying again after the nerfs but I'm rather pessimistic because I see a meta with control warrior being very common after the nerfs. But maybe I'm wrong.

[JooBatanete 4]

I don't know what you guys are on about. This deck is still really good against various decks in the meta. The mid shaman match up is still quite favorable, even though maelstrom portal definitely didn't do us any favors. What really hurts this deck though are things like control warrior, slower paladin builds with a lot of healing, reno decks and freeze mage. Anything else is either a good match up or at least doable.

That being said, I personally really like Sap even though I agree it's not very good in the current meta. So I decided to just run it as a one off instead of one gnomish inventor(which in my opinion is the worse card in the deck by a fair margin, and should be treated as a flexible spot).