Time is money, friend! For today’s deck tech I wanted to do something completely new for the series: highlight a Horde deck! So far we’ve explored Alliance Death Knight and Shaman, but have completely ignored Team Red (and Green). I’ve received some requests for Combat Rogue lists via Facebook Messenger and wanted to just answer them all here. Today we create a “murder hobo” style deck. If you’re not familiar with the term, it comes from tabletop RPG’s like D&D and Pathfinder. A murder hobo is a member of an adventuring party that kills first, asks questions later. And that’s what we’re doing today, so let’s roll for initiative and get the jump on the competition!

Tools of the Murder Hobo

In order to stab somebody, we’re gonna need a blade. And not just any blade – we need our pointy objects to come down quickly and swing for free. Historically, Rogue strikeout decks have left home packing ALL OF THE DAGGERS. And it was good enough back then. But as newer cards came out in the later years, I think Rogues received much better options than the daggers of old and sometimes in order to evolve you have to kill your darlings.

“The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi… let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.” – Ben Solo

Ultimately I think Balanced Heartseeker, Meteor Shard, Scarlet Kris, and the fan-favorite Whispering Blade of Slaying are way too slow. It’s not always their cost that’s slow, but the fact that they tax you so badly with their swing costs. So we’re going to let the past die and abandon the synergy of Whispering Blade and friends. But if we’re passing those up what are we gaining?

Our new murder weapons can best be split into two categories: fast and game-winning. On the fast side we have Eskhandar’s Right Claw which can be played for free assuming you have a second equipment you’re able to pitch. In my experience, the fastest wins (typically turn 4-5) often involve the Right Claw. The next turn one weapon we have is Teebu’s Blazing Longsword. It’s a bit of an unassuming weapon. If you’re scratching your head at its inclusion don’t feel left behind, you’ll catch up. Once we cover the rest of the deck it’ll make sense. Millennium Blade is a fantastic new addition to the strikeout strategy. When it was quietly printed in Betrayal of the Guardian there was some minor buzz about how good it was. Not so much for the Core format it was introduced to, but just that it had solid stats and a lot of potential. Well here we look to realize that potential. If you thought Scarlet Kris was good, Millennium Blade is Scarlet Kris on steroids.

Maimgor’s Bite is the one weapon to rule them all. I mentioned turn 4-5 wins – this is how you get there. If we can find some early +ATK effects for our fast weapons, we can slam this down and likely murder our opponent the same turn. I wanted a 16th weapon slot so I went searching for an impactful one-of and landed on Sinister Revenge. Like Maimgor’s, it’s a later turn drop meant to be played after you’ve already vomit’ed your hand onto the board, but it is also a bit more flexible in that you can run it out on turn two if your hand requires that of you.

So now we have our pointy, flaming, pokey, and slashing weapons but they all kinda suck at this point so why play them? Fear not, for there are a lot of effects including one which I eluded to in a previous article which will make our cheap and fast weapons really shine!

Sharpening the Blades

There’s no reason to go into much detail here. We noticed our weapons were kinda small, well this is how you grow them. Each of these +ATK effects go great alongside our cheap, easy to swing with weapons. Sadly, we’re going to pass up Khorium Boar with our version, but I want to highlight it and Demon Hide Spaulders as well since they are both good:

There is a surprising amount of redundancy here. And not only do these cards grant +1 ATK to each of our weapons but they also have some really handy effects stapled onto them as well! Surprise Attacks gives us a ton of game against Death Wish and anyone else who thinks they can hide behind armor. It also has varying levels of utility against some other minor cards in the format that could show up including Sardok. Meanwhile Restless Blades just straight-up lets us build our own Mother Misery. Why yes, yes I will equip five more weapons over the course of turns 3 through 5. Thank you, Restless Blades! As I mentioned previously, it is good insurance against weapon-flooding.

I have still never paid to swing with Striker’s Mark and gain the benefit of its sweet, sweet Long Range but don’t forget that ability! Eye of Rend and Shadow Strikes both increase Striker’s Mark’s ATK. Then the rest are pretty vanilla. Eye of Rend and Khorium Boar do what they say and Demon Hide Spaulders can give you some outs to opposing mages resolving Blizzard which can be a problem for this strategy.

So now you’ve seen the core of the deck. This is why we’re here but we’re not quite at 71 cards yet so let’s press on!

Filling in the Gaps

Rogue is a class – like many others – that comes with some auto-includes. Warlock has Hesriana, Warrior has Heroic Throw + Reconstruct, Mage has Blizzard, and Rogue has Poach and Poison the Well. Poach is just one of the best, if not the best targeted discard abilities in the format and Poison the Well is the best aggro-hoser. Poison has the additional upside of beating Crabbyfin combo if your opponent goes for it with no counter backup (something this deck can force out of the opponent with how much pressure it applies). Meanwhile Broderick is excellent against aggro decks as well, trading into their early allies and still providing some value.

Sinister Strike has shown up in these kinds of Rogue decks since their inception. As an Azeroth card, it’s been around since.. well.. forever. It’s not my favorite in this deck but it has been serviceable. Sinister Strike, alongside Shadow Strikes and Daspien’s flip, helps a great deal against decks packing Blizzard. Those games can get a little weird if they find it early as you end up sitting around for awhile just amassing giant weapons. Shadow Strikes is another tool from the freshman class of cards that is an absolute beast. Shadow Strikes, Broderick, Eye of the Storm, and Poison the Well are very important in the deck as they let you get past an opposing Sardok.

Murder Hobo, Assemble!

We’re moving fast this time around, but I think I’m just as ready to stare at the final list as you are so let’s see it!

Hero

Daspien Bladedancer

Abilities (23)

4x Poach

3x Sinister Strike

4x Surprise Attacks

4x Poison the Well

4x Restless Blades

4x Shadow Strikes

Allies (4)

4x Broderick Langforth

Armors (2)

2x Eye of Rend

Weapons (18)

4x Eskhandar’s Right Claw

1x Sinister Revenge

2x Striker’s Mark

3x Teebu’s Blazing Longsword

4x Maimgor’s Bite

4x Millennium Blade

Quests (10)

2x Junkboxes Needed

4x Orders From Lady Vashj

4x Akama’s Promise

Locations (3)

3x Eye of the Storm

Total cards in deck: 60

Side deck:

1x Fan of Knives

4x Purloin

2x Cover of Silence

3x Devious Dismantle

Total cards in sidedeck: 10

We went with the classic-staple Eye of the Storm for our location. I’ve found in play test that Eye is invaluable in racing situations and obviously excellent against Weldon Barov. With so many 0-2 cost cards, you really rack up the counters quickly and can afford to use them early to push through damage. The rest of the resources are just draw or discard. Since we play our hand so quickly and don’t need to worry about overextending, we get empty-handed very fast making our odd Quest choices actually good. Worth mentioning is that there are no shortage of good quests for the deck – Counterattack!, A Final Blow, One Draenei’s Junk…, Dr. Boom!, and A Warm Welcome are all excellent.

We can generally race opposing aggro decks by stabbing their allies for near-infinite card advantage and then turning the corner when Maimgor’s Bite or Shadow Strikes comes online. So our sideboard is more aimed at clothies with Cover of Silence against Mages and Vorixx (stops Blizzards, Exhaust cards, and Interrupts), Purloin against all clothies, Devious Dismantle to help against armor decks, and a fun-of Fan of Knives to come in against red aggro decks in particular.

I’ve actually played this deck quite a bit and it is both fun and surprisingly competitive as well as blisteringly fast. It’s definitely a change of pace from the known quantities of the format. The trick to playing it well is figuring out how to maximize your damage typically in spite of what your opponent is doing. You’re essentially just running at your enemy, producing weapons stashed in every possible place on your body, and stabbing them in the face. Repeat after me, “Murder. Hobo.” A friend and I have played various matchups against the Rogue but the one we tested the most was Brad Watson’s Blue Hunter (minus Weldon, plus Edwin) vs. Strikeout Rogue. And, to our surprise, Rogue remains undefeated! It is consistently a turn faster than Blue Hunter. That’ll teach Crop Top Simon to bring a gun to a knife fight!

Until next time, remember, if you see an NPC, stab first, ask questions later!

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