The Comprehensive Descent of Dragons Preview

Bloodsail Flybooter

Terrific 1-drop in Rogue that rivals Firefly in its early game effectiveness and consistency. Any Rogue deck would be interested in this card, because it does everything that the class wants to do in the early turns. It can fit perfectly in aggressive pirate decks. It’s a Combo, Questing Adventurer, and Edwin enabler extraordinaire. Very possibly stronger than Pharaoh Cat.

Score: 3

Praise Galakrond!

This is a weak invoke, but to its credit, it’s a lackey generator for 1-mana, which Rogue won’t mind too much. If we’re interested in running Galakrond, we’re going to have to play this card and like it. It can help us value trade, push a bit of damage, and fuel our other, more powerful plays.

Score: 2

Candle Breath

Powerful draw engine. Drawing 3 cards for 3 mana is very good, as shown by Master’s Call, and the class still has Preparation to think about. The only issue with this card is that it requires us to run dragons, and Rogue got screwed over by being the only class that wasn’t given a class specific non-legendary dragon, so it will have to make do with neutral dragons.

Score: 3

Dragon’s Hoard

Pretty good Vendetta/Fence enabler for the burgle package, and a strong card in Quest Rogue due to its synergy with Tess Greymane. However, it’s going to be tough to fit this card into Tempo Rogue decks because there are already so many powerful things to fit into them. We’re also skeptic that Quest Rogue will be a strong deck in DoD considering that Dragon’s Hoard is its only major upgrade, while this entire expansion is filled with broken cards for other archetypes.

Score: 2

Seal Fate

This is the better Invoke card out of the two available to Rogue because it helps us survive. Most minions on turn 2 and 3 can be killed with this card, allowing us to trade and delay. The best part is that we’re killing a minion while adding a lackey to our hand, which is decent card advantage and possible tempo play later. Staple in Galakrond decks.

Score: 3

Stowaway

This could be a game-changing card for any Rogue deck that likes to shuffle. It has great synergy with Waxadred, Shadows of Death and Pogo Hoppers (in Wild, this is a devastating follow up to Faldorei Strider). The only way Stowaway fails to make a name for itself in the DoD meta, is that these decks fall flat on their faces. This is, unfortunately, likely: shuffling Rogue decks have been weak over the past year. Just ask Academic Espionage players.

Score: 2

Necrium Apothecary

This card has so much potential in Rogue decks centered on deathrattles, and we’ll just mention two that stand out. It can act as a Waxadred tutor and candle generator. It can be a powerful standalone play with Mechanical Whelp. Necrium Apothecary would have been a surefire meta defining card in a class that had better deathrattles, but in Rogue, it will have to make do with what it has available to break through. At some point, it will probably do so.

Score: 3

Umbral Skulker

This card is pretty nuts, and a large reason why Rogue would want to run Galakrond. Umbral Skulker is essentially a 1 mana 3/3 because it gives you back 3 mana. But, it’s better than that, because it gives you mana back in the form of coins, which are ridiculously powerful in Rogue. For example, Skulker/Edwin is a two-card combo that can completely blow out the game as early as turn 4 by generating 26 stats on the board. Furthermore, the coins can just help cheat out a bigger play or fuel a Questing Adventurer. Mana is good, and Galakrond Rogue will have a lot of it.

Score: 3

Waxadred

Waxadred has good stats for its cost. 7/5 for 5 is quite aggressive and hard to ignore. When you add the deathrattle into the equation, Waxadred becomes an intriguing build-around card that has received quite a bit of support in this set. Will a Wax Rogue centered on duplicating its effect succeed? While powerful over a long game, the deathrattle effect can be slow and unreliable, and there are so many other powerful strategies available in theory. Rogue usually doesn’t like taking the game long.

Score: 2

Flik Skyshiv

A unique Vilespine Slayer with distruption implications, Flik is a very versatile removal card. It’s a great answer to duplicate minions such as Oasis Surger and Tomb Warden. It can act as a pseudo-AOE against tokens, such as Treants. It can destroy combo setups, such as the ones enabled by Flobbidnous Floop. It can just kill a minion you don’t want to see the second copy of. On top of it all, it’s just a strong tempo play with an assassinate effect attached to a 4/4 body for 6 mana. Hard to see Rogue decks pass it up.

Score: 3

Galakrond, the Nightmare

Rogue’s Galakrond has the perfect battlecry for burning out your opponent. Equipping an Arcanite Reaper while drawing 4 0-cost cards is a devastating play that will likely lead to death very quickly. A fully upgraded Galakrond is more dangerous than Heistbaron Togwaggle generating a Wonderous Wand, and we know how powerful that play is. In addition, Galakrond’s hero power is incredible for Rogue, a class that can never have enough lackeys. The biggest drawback to an otherwise perfect hero card is the heavy burden of the invoke cards, since the hero power doesn’t immediately affect the board and they carry a steep stat penalty. In addition, both neutral invokes offer weak tempo plays to the class.

Score: 3

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Final Thoughts

Descent of Dragons Set Rank: 4^th

Overall Power Ranking: 2^nd

The Rogue set is thought-provoking and pushes us into many different directions. We don’t believe any of its new cards are at the absolute top tier of this set (though Necrium Apothecary and Galakrond could certainly prove to be such), but they could all serve as strong tools, major upgrades, or the last pieces of the puzzle for incomplete strategies.

Tempo Rogue, a very successfully deck today, could incorporate Galakrond and become a lot scarier in its ability to finish games late. The sacrifice in its early game consistency could be a major hindrance, but there is certainly a lot of merit in exploring this possibility. The endless lackey generation and absurd mana cheating seems to be a perfect fit for the deck.

Deathrattle Rogue has failed to establish itself in the meta consistently for a long time, but Necrium Apothecary is the kind of card that can change everything.

Pirates are also making a big comeback this expansion, and while many of them seem to serve Warrior’s interests, Aggro Rogue could jump in and capitalize on some of them. Rogue also got an excellent 1-drop that every pirate deck would love to have.

While those might be the most promising archetypes at first glance, Rogue has many other tricks up its sleeve thanks to this set. The bottom line is that Rogue is too versatile, and carries too many good options, to have all of them crumble. A couple of them will stick, and one of them will likely sit close to the top of the meta. It’s the Rogue way.