Miracle Rogue

"I got the best deals anywhere."

Miracle Rogue is a Rogue combo deck in which the player aims to play a large amount of cards in a single turn, as well as cards that benefit from that, such as Edwin VanCleef.

Example cards

History

Miracle Rogue is one of, if not the oldest surviving deck in Hearthstone, dating back to the beta and earlier. It was initially modeled after the Magic: the Gathering deck "Miracle Gro", hence its name, which featured a card extremely similar to Questing Adventurer called "Quirion Dryad". In beta Miracle Rogue was deemed too powerful and was the target of several nerfs, such as Edwin VanCleef losing Stealth, decreased Attack gain on Mana Addict and the mana costs of Shiv, Conceal and Headcrack increasing by one, causing the deck to not see play for months. In early 2014 it rose again with cards such as Questing Adventurer and Mana Addict replaced with Leeroy Jenkins and SI:7 Agent, arguably being the best deck in the game until the release of Loatheb. It was later hit by the increase in mana cost to Leeroy Jenkins and Gadgetzan Auctioneer (the former change being made to prevent the then-popular 26-damage OTK combo involving Leeroy, Cold Blood and Shadowstep) causing the deck to die off again.

During the "Classic cards nerf" of spring 2016, Miracle Rogue saw another drawback with the loss of Blade Flurry's ability to also damage the enemy hero, and soon after with the loss of core cards like Tinker's Sharpsword Oil due to the introduction of Standard format. However, it gained new popular cards like Shadow Strike and Xaril, Poisoned Mind, and even Yogg-Saron, Hope's End sees play in the newest versions of this deck. Later expansions over the Year of the Kraken gave Miracle Rogue decks new additions like Counterfeit Coin and Arcane Giant and continued to remain as one of the most played Rogue decks.

Miracle Rogue decks were substantially nerfed with the Year of the Mammoth standard year, with Azure Drake and Conceal moving to the Hall of Fame set, but new Un'Goro cards like Razorpetal Lasher, Hallucination, and Vilespine Slayer kept the deck going strong. Knights of the Frozen Throne introduced a few new toys for Miracle Rogue, with boosts in survivability from Prince Valanar and Valeera the Hollow, as well as Lilian Voss, allowing the deck to potentially replace a dead hand whilst still maintaining tempo and pressure. Kobolds and Catacombs added new cards like Elven Minstrel and Fal'dorei Strider to improve the deck, as well as a variant that also utilizes Kingsbane.

Many cards that have been used in Miracle Rogue historically have been nerfed or rotated to the Hall of Fame, including Cold Blood, Leeroy Jenkins, Conceal, and Preparation, and replaced with newer expansion cards, making current iterations play much differently than they have previously, with current lists not even running the staple Gadgetzan Auctioneer, though similar cards like Field Contact are played. In 2021 the Classic format launched, and the famous combo-centric Miracle Rogue once established itself as the strongest deck in the format.

Trivia

• In Valeera's appearance in Heroes of the Storm, one of her gag quotes is "I'm an excellent rogue, but I can't perform miracles. Not after that nerf at least.", referencing Miracle Rogue and its infamous nerfs.

External links

• Miracle Rogue decks on Hearthpwn