Deck of the Week #10: Tempo Rogue

by Team [IHU] - 6 years ago

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[DKMR]Hexar here from team Don’t Kick My Robot to bring you this week’s Deck of the Week; Tempo Rogue. This deck has grown in popularity due to its favorable matchups against hunter, warlock, and druid. It’s known as tempo because the deck is trying to maintain board control with effective card use and card advantage and doesn’t fit the traditional roles of Aggro or Control. You are playing very efficient creatures while removing as much of your opponent’s board as possible. The beauty of tempo rogue is that it is very easy to change the deck to suit the current Metagame or your own playstyle. However, this is the current list we will talk about as we feel it’s quite strong in the current Metagame.

2x Backstab – This enables combos easily and is the cheapest removal out there, you really want to see this in your opener.

1x Cold Blood – a spicy card that helps you race hunters without over committing and allows you to trade weak minions for large threats.

2x Deadly Poison – A really strong turn 3 play. Getting two uses out of this is very good, as well as comboing with blade flurry.

2x Argent Squire – A strong turn 1 play that let’s you deal with early game threats as well as enable combos.

1x Blade Flurry – A card that really helps you deal with board floods, as well as push through damage. Combos very nicely with weapon buffs

2x Eviscerate – One of your best removal spells, as well as serving for strong burst to the face to close out games.

1x Sap – One of the strongest tempo cards. Gets through innervated theats, big taunts, as well as buying an extra turn against 5+ costing cards.

1x Bloodmage Thalnos – One of the best legendarys in the game. Cycles itself, buffs your spells, and enables combos very easily.

2x Loot Hoarder – A decent body that cycles your deck quicker. One of the more underrated cards in this deck.

1x Perdition’s Blade – Great for dealing with pesky small minions. Almost always is a 2for1 or lets you kill larger threats easier than dagger.

2x Harvest Golem – One of the most consistent bodies you can play. It’s also a strong turn 3 play without the coin.

2x SI:7 Agent –A very strong card. One of the staples of Rogue. Backstab into SI:7 agent will almost always give you control on turn 3. It’s also a strong coined card.

2x Chillwind Yeti – Just a solid 4drop in this deck. Being a 4/5 lets you trade very effectively.

2x Sen’Jin Shieldmasta – The backup Yetis in this deck. Many people would suggest Defender of Argus but in our opinion it is very important to play your 4drops on turn 4, and Defender loses value without targets to buff.

2x Azure Drake – This card is another staple of rogue. It’s a 4/4 that cycles itself and also gives you spell damage. Playing Azure drake into backstab is strong. Top decking Azure Drake on an empty hand is also one of the best feelings you can have playing this deck.

1x Spiteful Smith – A very solid body that trades very effectively and makes your passive ridiculously strong.

2x Argent Commander – A quick efficient threat that’s necessary with the quickness of the current Metagame. Meant to close games quickly as well as trade effectively with large minions.

1x Black Knight – Almost necessary in the meta today. Houndmasters are everywhere as well as defenders of argus. This also helps Shaman, Druid, and Handlock matchups.

1x Sprint – When it’s later in the game an you’ve got nothing left, this card will let you restock your hand and keep fighting.

Mulligans – You are mulliganing very aggressively for a strong opening hand. You want to try and get cards like backstab, argent squire, loot hoarder, SI:7 Agent, and Harvest golem. You also will likely want to keep Deadly poison if you expect your opponent to play 3 health minions. If you are able to get the early control and keep the power in your hands, you will transition very easily to the midgame and have a strong advantage.

The Coin – According to hearthstats, I have just over 300 games with variants of Tempo Rogue, it has my my percentage with the coin about 1.5% higher. This is close enough for us to see that the coin really doesn’t make as much of a difference as you would think. Going first will allow you to set the pace of the game, however going second gives you the coin which allows you to combo much easier with SI:7 agent, eviscerate, or perdition’s blade.

The Gameplan – Assert yourself as the board player. You are looking to get board control at all times. You want to aggressively trade and only go for face when it’s completely safe to do so. Using your creatures effectively to draw cards and remove theirs. At some point you will be in a racing position and then you can quickly change gears and burst your opponent down.

Alternate card choices

Big Game Hunter – Necessary if you are expecting warriors or handlocks. You can also cold blood their creatures to get BGH online!

Blood Knight – Strong against zoo-themed decks or even in conjunction with your own argent squires.

Cairne/Ragnaros – I tend to switch out Argent Commanders for these two cards when we expect a much slower more resilient Metagame

Leeroy/Shadowstep – This is a finisher some decks tend to play as it lets you close out games very quickly. However, we’ve opted against it as it’s not the most consistent.

We hope you enjoy this tempo rogue deck! Keep track of your stats on Hearthstats.net with this and let us know how you are doing!

You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on http://www.dontkickmyrobot.com/ with times and the days they stream! If Rogue peaks your interest, [DKMR]Soda is one of the top Rogue players NA with a variety of rogue decks for your liking.

Guide written by [DKMR]Hexar

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