Hearthstone - MalyRogue: the new Miracle

A few weeks ago now, Blizzard announced a series of nerfs to both Buzzard and Leeroy Jenkins, doing a complete revamp of the metagame right before the biggest tournament of the year, Blizzcon. Although only two cards are being changed, this is possibly one of the most impactful nerfs Blizzard has announced since the official release of the game. Many pro players have agreed that the Hunter class is no longer going to be viable without its primary draw mechanic that it so heavily relied on for keeping up aggression in the mid and late game. Furthermore, with the nerf to Leeroy, both Handlock and Miracle Rogue now lose their primary finisher combos, since Leeroy & double shadow step now costs 11 mana, and Leeroy, Power Overwhelming, and Faceless Manipulator now also costs 11 mana. Essentially, Leeroy combos are no longer viable, although his usefulness as a finisher in strictly aggro decks will most likely remain.

Where Handlock and Miracle Rogue go from here is a question on the top of many people's minds. Handlock will most likely remain a top tier deck, and many pros have begun cycling Jaraxxus into their Handlock decks as a finisher instead of Leeroy. Handlock will adapt, and thanks to Warlock’s Hero Power, will most likely never fall out of the meta.

Miracle rogue on the other hand, is another question entirely as to the direction it will go. Basically, Gadgetzan Auctioneer is so good at drawing an entire deck that this deck could honestly survive just through damaging spells and card draw alone. In the Prismatic cup, we actually saw a type of control/token Miracle rogue that included Violet Teachers to flood the board with 1/1s and maintain board control. Although Miracle lost its main damage dealer and finisher, the aspects that made it such a powerful deck are still intact, so the deck as a whole is not lost.

With that said, I introduce what may become the next version of Miracle rogue: Malyrogue. The concept of the deck is actually quite simple, we maintain the base of what made miracle so miraculous, tons of cheap spells, Gadgetzan Auctioneers, and being able to draw your entire deck in just a few turns. However, instead of using Leeroy and Shadowsteps as a finisher, we’re obviously using Malygos and crap tons of spell power to the face in order to close out a game.

Both iterations of Miracle have their downfalls and their strengths.

Strengths of Malyrogue

Lacks a weakness to taunts like Leeroy Miracle did, because most of the finisher damage will come directly from spells and not minions.

Although getting Malygos is a clear win condition for the deck, unlike Leeroy Miracle, it doesn’t need a specific set of cards like Leeroy miracle so heavily depended on three cards, Leeroy, Shadowstep, and Shadowstep, instead Malyrogue has just the one card, and then a variety of cards it can use to finish the game such as blade flurry (6 damage, or 8 with deadly poison), shiv (6 damage) eviscerate (7 or 9 damage) headcrack (7 damage) or even sinister strike (8 damage).

Doesn’t 100% rely on Malygos to close out games. In several games while testing this deck, I was able to use Earthen Far Seers, Si:7 agents, and Azure drakes to pressure the board while using spells to make sure the enemy board was clear of minions. Although the same was true with Leeroy Miracle, there are more removal spells in this version.

Weaknesses specific to Malyrogue

The turn you play Malygos basically becomes a dead turn. Unless you have a prep in hand to do some burst damage or throw out a sinister strike/conceal with it on turn 10, your turn essentially becomes all about just Malygos, which is a huge problem for your tempo.

The enemies turn after you play Malygos is a turn they now know what your deck relies upon, and will heal themselves as much as they can, or will use any hard removal on Malygos. Plopping down a Malygos on turn 9 and having it immediately siphon soul’d or deadly shot basically mean your win condition for that game is now gone.

In the same vein, Preparation becomes a much more important card for comboing with your Malygos turn, whereas in Leeroy its mainly a draw function with your gadgetzan. So while prep maintains being a great draw function, you have to make sure you aren’t wasting them when they could be critical for a one turn kill.

Weaknesses for Miracle in general

Having your Gadgetzan at the bottom of your deck basically means you lose. Without the constant draw mechanic that gadgetzan provides, Miracle becomes a suboptimal deck. Every match where both Gadgetzans were in the last 15 cards I lost without fail.

Miracle has a bad matchup against most aggro decks. Although fan of knives and blade flurry are solid AoE, with deathrattles making aggro decks rather sticky, Deathrattle priest, aggro Warrior, and Zoo do well against Miracle.

Relies heavily on going second for the extra combo activator.

Ice Block is the most annoying card in the game.

Mulligan's: Always look for Gadgetzan. Don’t keep Malygos or Azure Drake in your opening hand. Deadly poison is almost always a good way to stop early aggression, as are Far Seer’s and SI:7. If you suspect Handlock or Ramp druid, keep Sap and eviscerate, Fan of Knives and Backstab for Zoo, Hunter, or Deathrattle priest are excellent starters.
Turn 5: Don’t always just throw down Gadgetzan as quickly as possible, unless you can coin conceal, which is very ideal. Instead, you should wait for a turn where you can abuse the broken draw mechanics as much as you can.

Turn 9/10: Mentioned earlier, playing Malygos on turn 9 isn’t ideal unless you’re playing against priest, druid, or Paladin, who might not have a way to deal with it. Against any class with hard removal though, wait.

General: Don’t wait for Malygos to start throwing direct damage at the face. Shiving face while looking for draws, using Blade Flurry as AoE, or using Sinister strike to activate combos are all fine. Just make sure the turn you have Malygos isn’t the turn you have no damaging spells in hand.

Jason Mulchay