Hello! My name is Vashryl, and I’m here today to complain about Rogues. However, I’m not here to complain that they’re too strong, or that I hate them, or that Blizz should nerf them into oblivion because they keep popping up, rather on the contrary, my complaints are coming from a place of love.
I’ve been playing Hearthstone for a number of years, and my first love in the game came in the form of Miracle love, and it’s been my go-to class since. As a Rogue lover I’ve played almost every variant of Rogue I could get my hands on, from Miracle Rogue to Malygos Rogue, Kingsbane Control and Kingsbane Aggro, from Tempo to Deathrattle, I’ve tried every Rogue archetype under the sun, and it’s from this love for the Rogue play-style and reach that I make this post.
In recent expansions, Rogue has become homogenized. Don’t get me wrong, Rogue has been in a powerful and predominant place in the meta since forever, and doesn’t seem to be falling off any time soon, but my problems stem rather from that simply, only a single archetype of Rogue seems to be allowed to exist. Tempo Rogue.
Sure fringe variants pop up here and there, but Blizzard seems to be pushing Rogue to only work in a tempo environment. In both Wild and in particular Standard, you will only see Tempo and Tempo variants on the ladder with anything breaking the mold stuck banished to a tier 3-4 deck at best. It seems in the eyes of Blizzard, Control/Value Rogue is not allowed to exist. You can see this in a few places: first and foremost, the fact that Rogue is offered little to no control/defensive tools in its class cards, and the few that you find are tailored to fit in a tempo shell. Rogues are being forced into a purely proactive play-style as there are no taunts and no healing, which some argue is part of the class identity, but when a class identity forces a whole class into a single play-style, maybe it’s time to rethink the identity you’re pushing.
This isn’t a new issue either, have you ever asked yourself why in the era of the hugely impactful and powerful death knights (KotFT), Valeera the Hollow mostly fell to the sidelines despite having an incredible defensive ability paired with an amazing value engine in the form of Shadow Reflection? It’s because despite being offered the crutch of the Valeera hero card, the rest of Rogue (with the exception of Vanish, but I’ll get to that later) is offered almost nothing in terms of being able to push a defensive value strategy. Even in recent sets, the quest (Bazaar Burglary), which on the surface wants to push Rogues toward value, only works well in a tempo shell because the support to go with it is only in the form of tempo creatures and even the payoff virtually only works in a tempo environment. For example, you would imagine something like Pick Pocket would work quite well as a one-of in a value thief Rogue archetype: filling your hand with great value and completing your quest in a single card, but on the contrary it never sees play, simply because it is a slower value card that has no immediate board impact and without the support of control class cards you simply give up far too much to take a turn off to fill you hand with it.
Historically, control/value Rogues have existed here and there in the past (shoutout to Wild’s Kingsbane Control, one of my all time favorite decks: rest in peace, victim of Blizzard’s design philosophy and Standard’s Tempo Rogue dominance at the time, you won’t be forgotten), but massively with Blizzard’s removal of Vanish from the Standard environment, it has fallen far to the wayside. Vanish being moved to the Hall of Fame is a move I highly disagree with, both from a mechanical standpoint and a flavor standpoint. It forced Rogues away from allowing for a reactive play-style, pushing them strictly into the realm of “The only way you clear a board of minions is with a board of minions of your own”. Not to mention that Vanish as a card felt very flavorful and on point for a Rogue to have, allowing you to deal with a board of minions, but in a different and interesting way from a strict board wipe (f.ex Twisting Nether or Flamestrike) that felt like something a Rogue would have up their sleeves.
You can also see the idea of pushing tempo Rogue in a more recent setting, the Doom in the Tomb event where the two cards Rogue received both served to push the tempo archetype once again. (One can argue it was to push the thief Rogue archetype, but as previously stated thief Rogue cannot exist without a tempo shell to the point where the quest payoff for thief Rogue is a tempo tool.)
So here as we stand on the verge of the Descent of Dragons, glancing at the released Rogue cards you see once more the mindset that Rogue isn’t allowed to be anything but tempo. Looking over the list of new cards Rogue is gaining, almost all of them are geared towards further pushing Rogue towards another expansion of tempo Rogue fully eclipsing all other possible Rogue archetypes. The most obvious comes in the form of Galakrond, the Nightmare, the Rogue Galakrond hero card who is clearly geared towards a tempo play-style. It may seem to follow a more value oriented play-style at first glance, but looking for a moment more will reveal the clear push for tempo Rogue. Drawing cards and reducing their cost has been a hallmark of modern tempo Rogues (Heistbaron Togwaggle), and the generation of lackeys through the Rogue Invoke fights for board and tempo much more than value, despite appearances. Not to mention the fact that the Rogue class Invoke cards are geared to virtually only function in a tempo shell with the only deviation from this mold being Umbral Skulker, the invoke payoff outside of Galakrond, theoretically allowing for a more Miracle remanisent Rogue. However, the design philosophy was more likely along the lines of pushing a Questing Adventurer / Edwin / Tempo-Combo (the mechanic not archetype) shell, which is more likely to see success due to the other Rogue class cards. The remaining Rogue class cards releasing with DoD further push the archetype of tempo. Bloodsail Flybooter (callout of Kitesail Freebooter) is the most obvious push towards tempo. It’s a great card, but only in tempo. Waxadread and Candle Breath I am a huge fan of, as they’re cards actually pushing Rogue in a different direction than pure tempo, but are unlikely to see success as Waxadread happens to be the only Rogue dragon in existence, which makes Candle Breath more difficult to work as neutral dragons, although good, lack the kick class cards allow for. Necrium Apothecary is an interesting one, but seems to simply be another push towards a more deathrattle-centric tempo shell. (I look forward to trying to make it work alongside Stowaway and Waxadread in a candle-spam value Rogue, but I’m not optimistic about it working outside of having fun). To round out the remaining cards, Flik Skyshiv is a great card, good for a reactive control shell, yet clearly meant for tempo. Finally Dragon’s Hoard just kinda isn’t very good, although kinda fun (might see some play similar to Pilfer in thief Rogue: another tempo shell).
To sum up my thoughts, I love Rogue. It’s fun and offers a different and unique play-style than most other classes, and gives you fun and interesting cards to play with in a variety of ways. However nowadays, it feels like the only way can play a Rogue is Tempo, which takes away from the interesting and flexible possibilities the class offers, and from the looks of things, homogenized tempo Rogue doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so buckle up friends, for another few seasons of tier 2 tempo Rogue and nothing else are on the horizon.
What do you guys think?