OurThief Rogue Deck List Guidefeatures the top deck list for the archetype in the Rise of Shadows expansion! We’re taking a detailed look at the deck including mulligans, play strategy, card choices, and substitutions if you are missing some of the card in the deck.
Blizzard has been flirting with the idea ofThief Roguefor a while now, and they’re doing it again in Rise of Shadows. There’s a few pretty strong options that seek to reward you for gaining cards from another class, and there’s still some good cards from previous expansions that will be sticking around after the rotation. If this deck has a chance of seeing some play, it might be in either this expansion or the next!
Thief Rogue Deck List
Thief Rogue is holding its own so far, but the variant that is more of a mixture between thief and tempo might be better. We’ll be focusing on the standard Thief Rogue for the guide, since the other one is closer toTempo Roguewhich we already have a guide about.
Deck Code
Early Thief Rogue Gameplay
Brian Kibler took out an early version of Thief Rogue onto the ladder. It’s not the exact list we’re featuring, but watching the video will help familiarize yourself with this style of play.
Thief Rogue Mulligan Guide
We’re mostly looking for Underbelly Fence and a way to trigger its buff very early on. Otherwise, we’d like to get a cheaper minion and maybe a spell we can play.
Situational Keeps
Thief Rogue Play Strategy
We have kind of a weak early game unless we directly hit Pilfer into Underbelly Fence, so largely we’re hoping to keep the board manageable until we can get into the mid-game where most of our better cards can be found. We’re Rogue, so we aren’t too upset if we have to Dagger on turn two, but we’d rather be getting that sweet buffed Underbelly Fence because it’s a pretty insane card on curve. A lot of what we’re going to be able to do starts on turn three. We’ve got many 3-drops in the deck, so use what fits what’s going on with the board the best. This can be the time when we can gain some tempo back if we have a card to combo with Si:7 Agent and we can get a removal with his damage.PreparationandBackstabwill largely make up your combo triggers if you got them, so save them if your hand requires comboing.
We’re really hoping to get a card from outside our deck as early as possible. We don’t really even care how good the card is (although, it’d be nice if it was good) because we’ll just need it in hand to power up our other cards. This is particularly the case withVendettabecause we can use that to remove a minion from our opponent’s board for free. It also makes a great combo card, which we will need early in the game.
As we head into the mid-game, we’re looking to hopefully start setting up ourSpectral Cutlass. While most Rogue decks can’t really heal themselves, this card makes it so we can potentially gain some health back that we lost in the early game. We’re less upset about using our weapons against more aggressive decks because we should have this in our back pocket. We also run quite a few weapon buffs, and if we’re commonly getting more cards from outside our deck then we can keep adding durability to it. One problem that might arise soon is that decks are going to start running weapon hate. You’ll need to be careful about going too all-in on your weapon, and playing it as a tempo play without getting any use out of it might be a mistake. You can afford to be a bit more aggressive with your weapon if you have a Raiding Party in your hand since you can just grab the other copy of it if your current one is destroyed.
If things are firing on all cylinders as we head into the late game it means we’ve got a Cutlass with some buffs on it and we’re making trades and playing decks from outside our deck. Walk the Plank could come into play here as solid removal, and Captain Greenskin gives our weapon an even bigger boost. If worse comes to worse and we’re running out of gas, that’s whenTess Greymanecomes into play. This isn’t a reliable win condition, but if we’ve played enough cards from other classes we might just be able to get ourselves back into the game or finish it off.
Another card that can give us some gas in the late game isFace Collector. It’s not necessarily a reliable option, but there’s some good Legendaries out there and we can get a few cards to work with if we can hold onto it into the late game. These cards might just be enough to get us over the top if we’re in a top deck battle.
Thief Rogue Card Choices
We’re very likely leaning towards a Pirate synergy deck with a lot of cards that can grab cards from other classes.
