“Gadgetzan is unplayable. Miracle is dead…”

Loatheb was added, Leeroy Jenkins was nerfed and Miracle Rogues suffered a huge power drop. So when it was announced that Gadgetzan Auctioneer was next on the chopping block, some people scratched their heads and asked why?

I’m gonna take a guess and say because Goblin vs Gnomes has spawned a new, disgusting Miracle… and this latest iteration is bigger, badder and scarier than ever.

Historically, turn-1 on an empty board for Miracle means pass. Unless staving off aggression, a Miracle player will hoard his spells in order to combo them with Gadgetzan to draw their entire deck.

Now, it’s a different story.

Miracle Rogues are the aggressors. They will never keep Gadgetzan Auctioneer in their starting hand and mulligan for the early tempo minions that give spare parts instead. They will play minion after minion and force the opponent to deal with good stat bodies and at the same time be reimbursed with a 1-mana spell to later combo with Auctioneer.

Combined with Rogue staple backstab, you are looking at heavy aggressive tempo throughout early and mid and because each minion gives back a spare part. When the Auctioneer eventually gets dropped, they’re still going to go through their deck and keep flooding you or look for their finisher.

The big difference now, is that miracle rogue will have more tempo and board to play with and worse cards to trigger Auctioneer with.

And of course, one of the spare parts gives a friendly minion temporary stealth. Which means you can now cut the card stealth, and if you get lucky, that Auctioneer is still going into hiding.

And let’s not forget some of the other noteworthy, combo-heavy cards:

Mimiron’s Head combined with all mechs stealthed…? Mega-windfury time!

Disguised Microbot/Iron Sensei…? Big, big minion smash!

I am not a professional hearthstone player and it would be interesting to hear what the pros think. But right now, my opinion is that I don’t think Miracle Rogue is dead. Quite the opposite. Not only was Gadgetzan Auctioneer nerf correct, but it was absolutely necessary. If I’m right, then it’s gonna be a helluva good time to be Miracle Rogue.