Dies to Removal

After playing with it for a while over the past week, I think it's garbage now. It has way too many unfavorable matchups, as well as so many starting hands that just fold to any kind of pressure. This is kind of a shame, since I absolutely love the late game when I'm on that deck. You always have multiple decision trees.

What match ups did you find particularly hard? I've been playing this now for the past little while, and doing fairly well. The only deck that I really can't beat is Warrior (either of them). Everything else seems pretty close to even, and a couple match ups seem very much in my favour, like Hunter and Mage.

This is what I'm currently playing. Rank 9 so far, but still winning more than half my games. I'm definitely still making mistakes though. Some I catch after the fact, so I'm sure I'm missing others. It's not an easy deck to play.

2 Backstab
2 Preparation

2 Deadly Poison
1 Southsea Deckhand (not totally convinced that this is necessary)

2 Blade Flurry
2 Eviscerate
2 Sap
2 Shiv
1 Kobold Geomancer (should be Bloodmage Thalnos)

2 Fan of Knives
2 Earthen Ring Farseer
2 SI:7 Agent

2 Tinker's Sharpsword Oil
1 Violet Teacher

1 Antique Healbot (could be Violet Teacher)
2 Azure Drake

2 Sprint

Yeah lol the deck isn't bad, I was just playing it way too low in the ladder where aggro and patron warrior is everywhere. I'm on your list minus a geomancer, 2 shiv, an oil (I'm 100% certain 1 oil is best), 1 fan of knives and a healbot and plus 1 shredder, 1 teacher, Loatheb, Thaurissan and 2 sludge belchers.

Those are some interesting changes. I don't have a Loatheb or Belchers yet (need to save up for a few more weeks to unlock those), but maybe I should try the Emperor in here. I'd been playing with the idea anyway. Never thought of adding a Shredder though. Just a resiliant body for your Oil, I guess?

Oh, but you're only playing 1 Oil. Why do you think that's best? In that case, do you still like the Deckhand? Tinker's Oil and the quick kills lategame is the only reason he's even a consideration for me.

Yeah, shredder's just a really powerful card. Not even meant to throw an oil on, just to give you a nice 2-1. Most lists run 1 or 2.
LP told me to play 1 oil, saying it was the clunkiest card in the deck. I immediately made the switch and haven't looked back. It just makes your deck run so much smoother and you don't actually need to draw the card to win games. You might need 2 since a lack of sludge belchers forces you to put on more pressure. Sludge belcher is a very important minion though.
Deckhand is probably a suboptimal card choice. The deck wants bloodmage instead, but I don't have him.

I definitely wish I had a Belcher, for more decks than just this one. As is right now I almost feel like I'm playing a burn deck. Hit for a bunch with Oil, finish them off with hero weapon plus burn. Shiv is a great card for that when you've got a Drake out. I'm going to try some changes here though. See how it goes with a bit higher curve.

What I ended up trying was -2 Shiv, -1 Kobold Geomancer, +2 Piloted Shredder, +1 Emperor. Played half a dozen games.

Not totally convinced that Emperor is where I want to be, but the body is nice. The Shredders are definitely great, and actually give me some game against Warriors which is nice (won my first Warrior matchup ever this morning). I have missed the Geomancer from time to time, but having a body on board more consistently is definitely a plus. Toying with the idea of taking out my Healbot instead since Fanning for 2 is pretty great and maybe I don't need to fear aggro quite so much if I'm playing the Shredders. We'll see. I'm going to carry on with this for a bit and see how it holds up.

Oil Rogue is a tier one deck, but it's one of the harder decks to play.

You can play either with 2 teachers 1 oi,l 1 shredder, 1 teacher 2 oils, 1 shredder, or zero teachers 2 oils, 2 shredders because teacher and oil don't interact well together and you can only play so many 4 drops.

The mix you run is mostly pers pref with slight meta considerations.

Teacher is good because it gives you a plan by itself and lets you control the board for as long as it stays in play. Shredders good because it's sticky, oils good for maximizing burst damage.

If you want to see good oil rogue players try catching purpledrank or mryagut's streams as they're the best rogue players that stream semi-regularly.

Thanks, LP. Good to know that my "meh" feeling about Teacher wasn't crazy, though I do like my one copy. I'm sticking with 2 Oils for now because I also like the burn feeling of smashing in for piles of damage at once.

I've never watched a stream in my life, but maybe I'll try to check one of those guys out.

What's your feeling on Belcher? I've seen lists that didn't include him, but Jack seems to swear by it. I'd certainly like to replace my Healbot with one at the least.

Okay, because I'm an idiot and apparently don't know how streams work, where do I find when they're going to be streaming next? Are these things posted to youtube to be watched later, or is it only a live thing? All I could find on YouTube was Rank 9 players playing purpledrank's list.

Twitch.com

Right. Got that far. But then it just says they're offline, and helpfully redirects me to other Hearthstone streams that I might enjoy. Or am I really an idiot and there's a way to watch past videos on there?

There should be a "videos" section for each streamer with past videos if they allow it. It's not easy to look for it, it should be on another tab where the chat is.
Depending on which device you look at it, twitch website is a bit like wotc website I think.

Yeah, I got it now. The mobile site didn't allow me to do that, but I downloaded the app and it's there. Whether or not I am an idiot, I'll leave for you to judge. Thanks.

legendarylea is also worth the interest for watching.

Is that you? What do you play?

Obvioulsy not me, the only online game I play is WoT.

Trying for Legend this month. Currently playing the following list. I took Emperor out for a bit, but ended up throwing him back in to help against Warrior and just to increase the average power level of my cards for Warlock matchups. Been thinking about replacing him with a Belcher, since that sort of fills a good role against both aggro and midrange.

2 Backstab
2 Preparation

2 Deadly Poison

2 Blade Flurry
2 Eviscerate
2 Sap
1 Bloodmage Thalnos

2 Fan of Knives
2 Earthen Ring Farseer
2 SI:7 Agent

2 Tinker's Sharpsword Oil
2 Piloted Shredder

1 Antique Healbot
2 Azure Drake
1 Loatheb

1 Emperor Thaurissan

2 Sprint


Warrior - Tough, but beatable. I tend to assume he's playing the heavy armour deck and just play aggro. Doesn't hurt me much to do so if he's playing Patron instead. Top priority is keeping his life total at a manageable level, even if that means running your 3/3's into Axes.

Shaman - Tough. Mech Shaman is easy enough, but lately I've been seeing much more big stuff from this guy. I try to play aggro here, and it sometimes works. Luckily he's not that popular.

Rogue - Easy, since I'm so much better than the other Rogue players.

Paladin - Easy. As long as I can stay alive, I win. Staying alive isn't all that hard since this deck does very well against aggro. The dragon deck is less popular, and also pretty beatable.

Hunter - Easy if he's playing Explosive Trap (Face Hunter? Is that what it's called?), tough if it's zemanjaski's damned "Hybrid Hunter" list! Still beatable, but it's a tricky matchup.

Druid - Tough. I'm not totally sure how to play properly against this guy. I've had some success just trying hard to get an early board presence. You need to control the early game so you don't die to Treefolk combo, but his massive taunt guys tend to win the late game. Most of my wins come from some early beats followed by a Sap/Oil kill.

Warlock - Either really easy or really hard. I rarely lose to aggro Warlock, but big-hand Warlock (there's gotta be a name for this deck) is probably the hardest matchup out there. I've been mulliganning to be as aggro as possible.

Mage - Easy enough. It's a tricky match, but all three of the Mage lists I've seen (Mech, Spells and Dragons) aren't too hard to win if you play your cards right.

Priest - Easy. Aggro Priest or control Priest, neither of them are big problems. I usually mull for the control matchup since I need card quality to get there.


Any thoughts on that breakdown or on the deck? I feel like I could be playing certain matchups a bit better, but we're getting there. Currently Rank 8.

Well, switched out Emperor for Belcher after losing a couple games. Took out Healbot for another Belcher too to balance out the hit to my Warrior matchup. Currently on a six win streak and Rank 6. Thanks, Belcher!

In the matchups where you say you have to "play aggro," I feel like the game is really left to the luck of the draw. You really don't play enough minions to have a consistent aggro plan. That's what makes the handlock matchup so weird.

Warrior is definitely the biggest problem for this deck. Patron warrior has a faster kill than you, and you're always a few damage short of killing control warrior.

LP is my go-to resource for rogue knowledge. He just knows the class really, really well and, from spectating games, it seems like he has a lot of experience/knowledge in every matchup.

When I say I'm going aggro, all that really means is that I keep a minion heavy opener and play them out early, even if I don't get the full benefit of healing 3 or dealing 2. Coin into Agent on an empty board is not something I'd consider in other matchups (against aggro, for example). I'll do that every time against Warriors.

I gotcha. I'll usually play farseer on turn 2 because that card doesn't do too much against war, but in most cases I'll hold the agent and get a knife instead.

You definitely want to have a minion in every opener because you want something on board by turn 4. I'll even keep a shredder against hunter because I'm scared of having no minions and losing because 1:1 trades don't stop aggro decks.

I love Shredder. Far and away the best change I've made to this deck. It's a shame he sucks so much against Freezing Trap though. Hate that card.

Quick and dirty matchup guide:

Handlock(aka big hand warlock deck): unfavorable if they have turn 4 drake or coin drake, even otherwise. You basically want to get there life total to ~16 then burst them down, but depending on your draw, sometimes you just have to yolo and hope they don't have double molten, taunt, healbot(like always happens to me). In general, I prefer to save saps for belchers and giants, but act as the situation dictates. I generally keep whatever 4 drop you're running(i'm on teacher, but shredder, teacher, whatever) if I suspect it's handlock and I'll also keep drake and sprint since the games gonna go long and you're gonna need to refill hand.

Zoo: Pretty favorable. Kill all the things, beat down. Matchups great if you have Edwin and can make a 6/6 or bigger early. I'll usually pop egg if I plan on flurrying in the near future. Note that in some games, there's a break point in the late game where both sides are threating lethal and you have to do a lot of risk/reward assement.

Control warrior: Good luck. Keep prep, sprint, 4 drop, and drake. This is one of the matchups where violet teachers better since the upfront body doesn't die to war axe and if they don't have a prepped death's bite, the tokens do work. Note that if/when you oil combo, BGH kills drake and loatheb. Something that's helped me in the matchup is saving all my weapon buffs for face to try and OHKO them(I also run southsea for more combo wins). This is easily the worst matchup though.

Patron warrior: Good matchup if they don't OHKO you. The giveaway cards are slam, ghoul, inner rage and gnomish inventor. When you know you're playing patron, try to have a deadly poison handy to flurry their board down. If they play a turn 6 emperor with a big hand though, you're probably gonna get one-shot so beware of that. I like playing this matchup aggressively and sap things fairly liberally.

Tempo mage: This matchup is bad if you don't have timely flurries. If you do, it's a tight race, but you're generally favored. The cards that will wreck you are mirror image hiding flamewakers and mana wyrms from weapons and frostbolt timewalking you. Loathebs also a thing, but that cards always good against you. Also worth noting is that unless your hand is bad, you want to save bloodmage for value because it's very important to kill manawyrms and images which the spellpower on mage lets you do fairly quickly with backstab and fan respectively. Don't get blown out by mirror image. Try to either proc it with 3 drops/bloodmage or the turn that you're gonna flurry. In the same vein, beware that most lists play 1 counterspell.

Druid: So in a matchup where you're trying to be very aggressive, it may seem odd to keep sprint in your opener, but this is why: since they're deck is so clunky with or without wild growth starts, you have a fairly big tempo advantage and will almost always have board advanatage early, but since their minions are chunky, you tend to run out of cards and get into lots of turn 7/8 situations where your hand is poison, prep, flurry or some nonsense with them at 15 hiding behind a taunt. By keeping sprint, you guarantee a refill which should set up lethal on the following turn.

Said a simpler way, you lose this matchup by running out of gas or getting timewalked by loatheb into lethal. You can general expect the druid(and most good players honestly) to play loatheb either the turn before they're going to kill you, or the turn after you sprint.

Paladin: free win? Like, if they're midrange, they can't do anything that matters. They're just slow and have no combo kill so you get infinite time to set up as you manage the board. If they're agro, they can actually fuck you up if they have a draw heavy with divine shield minions and if you can't pressure them back, you'll lose after you spend a turn sprinting and they divine favor into chargers. In general though, i'm happy to face paladin. Keep fan for muster, Harrison if you play it, and the normal 3-drop and backstab or prep.

Hunter variants:

Face: good matchup if you run double healbot, decent if you run double farseer, unfavorable if you only have 2 heals. Most important thing other then knowing you have to race them, is knowing when NOT to pop explosive trap. This mostly comes down to counting how much damage they can with their mana+what's on board. I won't go in depth with math, turn 7, they can easily do 8 damage from hand+hero power, and if you're super unlucky, they can do 11(huffer+kill command+abusive sergeant). If you keep all that in mind though and actually draw your heals, you should be good.

Midrange hunter: this is generally the hunter deck with freezings, highmanes, belchers, and webspinners. This matchup similar to hybrid hunter matchup is heavily dependant on not getting blown out by freezing trap. If they have board control and have freezing vs. your 1 minion, you're a big dog in the game to win since you lose so much tempo and probably can't answer the board while applying pressure. For that reason, it's also important to have sap in this matchup. I wouldn't keep it in opener since it's still hunter after all, but you need to draw it most of the time, and you often want to get a 5 or 6 drop with it, though I'm also fine sapping mad scientist since that card leads to freezing which leads to blowouts. One thing that makes trap less brutal is deckhand to proc it for the low cost of 1 mana. On the flipside, I've been blownout a couple of times by snake trap and less frequently by explosive(since that ones easy to test for). I'd call this matchup slightly favorable though since we burst faster and have heals.

Hybrid hunter: Face hunter with freezing trap. Basically a nightmare. The BIG issue with this matchup is when they have the face hunter opener and you play like it's face hunter only to get beat by freezing and highmane. The only real way to tell if it's hybrid is if they're trading more aggressively then usually since face hunter rarely trades with anything other then glavezooka or deathrattle minions.

Mirror match: Take a hardline to be either the guy playing the agro tempo game, or the guy playing the control>combo finish game. Also don't get harrison'd or play against the guy running assassin's blade. I lost to a guy that only did damage to me with assassin's blade and blade flurry.

VERY GENERAL mulligan guide:

I usually always keep Si and Prep.

On coin, I always keep a 4 drop.

In non-hunter agro matchups, I keep posion.

The exception with keeping prep is when I'm playing against aggressive decks and I'd rather have backstab.

In matchups that go long, I'll keep sprint and azure drake.

I'll almost never keep sap, but if the hand is great, I'll consider keeping it against druid.

I keep Harrison against warrior, paladin and rogue whenever I'm playing the card and I keep loatheb against rogue. NEVER against hunter though.

Against agro decks, I'll sometimes keep evisc. and nearly always vs. mage.

Fan is ok to keep sometimes, especially If you have prep.

I have no thoughts on oil rogue right now

You've been a great help

That's what I was going to say!


Thanks a lot for the write-up, LP. I like your rationale for keeping Sprint against Druid. Think I'll try that.

I'm not currently running a Healbot (just two Farseers). Do you think that's a mistake? Face Hunter is the only deck I really need him for, but I've been seeing so much midrange and hybrid Hunter that I have trouble keeping him when mulliganning. I wasn't a big fan of him clogging up my hand in other matchups since aggro already seems favoured even without him.

One other question: Do you ever keep Oil?

I don't THINK it's ever correct to keep oil because it's a card you generally don't want early and backstab/si/deadly do the job more efficiently. Oil's just an overcosted posion most of the time when you aren't comboing it out or need it for a board clear in mid game with flurry.

I also didn't cover priest because there's a bunch of priest decks(all bad for the most part) and that's a matchup I play by ear. The one thing I will say about priest is that most of your losses vs. them will be due to running out of damage in your deck so be wary of that.

As far as healbot goes, I'd always play 1 but you can probably get away without it. If you're doing fine without healbot, don't bother switching if you're having success.

I asked about the Oil because I was considering keeping it in a match against Druid since they have relatively few ways to actually deal with your pumped up minion if you end up needing to Oil early. I opted not to for exactly the reasons you said here, and I agree that's probably correct. There are other things you need more in every matchup.



Want to share your decklist, LP? I'm curious where we differ.

2 Backstab
2 Preparation

2 Deadly Poison

1 Southsea Deckhand

2 Blade Flurry
2 Eviscerate
2 Sap
1 Bloodmage Thalnos

2 Fan of Knives
2 Earthen Ring Farseer
2 SI:7 Agent

2 Tinker's Sharpsword Oil
2 Violet Teacher

1 Antique Healbot
2 Azure Drake
1 Loatheb


2 Sprint

Also note, I'd only consider myself an Ok oil rogue player.

The deck I'm best with is zoo by a million.

That's Warlock aggro, right? Can I see that decklist? Other than that 5/7 haste guy, it seems to be a bit of a crapshoot what giant demons they're playing. Makes for some interesting games.

Well, there's demon zoo, which is newer and plays voidcallers and Mal'Ganis, and then there's regular zoo, which varies from aggro to midrange. Midrange lists will run shredders and Boom, aggro variants play leper gnomes and other low curve minions. I've always been a bigger fan of midrange zoo, but a dude at my LGS recommended a list that runs a super low curve and plays darkbomb and soulfire and keeps up by life tapping VERY aggressively.
I played the burn list for a few games, then decided that I just liked hunter and shaman better for aggro.
I don't think it's worth it to play any variant other than demon zoo right now.

[deck]Oil Rogue[/deck]
Class(20)
2 Backstab
2 Preparation
2 Deadly Poison
2 Blade Flurry
2 Eviscerate
2 Sap
2 Fan of Knives
2 SI:7 Agent
2 Tinker's Sharpsword Oil
2 Sprint

Neutral (10)
1 Bloodmage Thalnos
2 Earthen Ring Farseer
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Antique Healbot
2 Azure Drake
1 Harrison Jones
1 Loatheb
[/deck]

You should be playing teachers or van Cleef + southsea deckhand so that you can pull off a big turn more often

My list
[deck]Oil Rogue[/deck]

Those cards are all bad right now (Deckhand, Van Cleef is always bad, Teacher is bad vs Patron). My list isn't as good as yours in theory, but itsmuch better in the present meta.

We're also in very different metas ;p. Mine seems to be all pally, all the time, and you're up against the best decks.