Secret Rogue Deck Guide – Ashes of Outland

Our Heartstone Secret Rogue Deck List Guide takes a look at this new archetype from the Ashes of Outland expansion! We've got a look at the best list for the deck as well as mulligans, play strategy & tips, and card replacements!

Rogue has always felt like a class that should have Secrets! I mean, it really suits the flavor of their class, so it's good to see that they are finally getting a bit more support. Now that we have some additional tools in Ashes of Outland, it looks like there's a possibility that this archetype could have some legs. We'll have to wait and see if it's enough to propel it the forefront of the meta!

Secret Rogue Deck List

We've got an early look at this deck with a version by JalexanderHS! We'll be updating this list with more refined lists as the meta starts to shape up.

Secret Rogue Mulligan Guide

Always Keep

• Secretkeeper - This deck isn't made to have this card get crazy, but there will be times where you can snowball it with enough Secrets that it can become hard to remove. If you get enough chip damage with it early in the game, it will make finishing the job a whole lot easier.
• Spymistress - Probably your best turn one play is just slapping this on the board, especially if you can follow it up with one of your cards that does something when you have a Stealth minion on the board.
• Worgen Infiltrator - It was finally Worgen Infiltrator's time to truly shine, but then it got power-creeped by Spymistress. Well, it's still good enough to keep and is still valuable in this deck.

Possible Keeps

You can keep one of your Secrets if you have Secretkeeper in your opening draw! Most of the possible keeps rely on you having a 1-drop minion, usually one with Stealth in particular.

• Backstab - Keep Backstab if you're expecting an aggressive deck and something you feel like you're going to need to remove immediately. You can also keep it with smaller minions, especially something like Secretkeeper which you will want to protect. Also, a pretty good keep with EVIL Miscreant.
• Ashtongue Slayer - Only keep this if you have a 1-drop with Stealth already in your hand. This is a powerful card, but obviously we really want to get that buff off on something.
• Skyvateer - Can be kept with a 1-drop and/or Greyheart Sage that can follow it up and get us some card draw.
• Akama - Something we'll want to play early, but it also has good stats and Stealth. It's a strong card, but we want to get off to an early start and it's a bit on the slow side.
• EVIL Miscreant - A bit on the slow side, especially since we can't rely on getting the combo off on turn three. Better to keep this when you have Backstab or The Coin, so you can get the combo portion of the card triggered.
• Greyheart Sage - Another card you should only keep if you have a 1-drop Stealth minion. This is also better kept when you have The Coin so you can get it out on turn two.

Secret Rogue Tips & Play Strategy

You'll notice a lot of similarities with this deck and Stealth Rogue. Quite a few cards overlap, but this version is a bit focused on taking advantage of Secrets. We're a pretty aggressive deck, so try to keep most of your trading to a minimum when possible. Use your weapon for trades as much as possible, because we want to get in repeat damage with our minions.

Our Secret package includes three different options to confuse and get advantage from our opponent. Ambush provides us a pretty great way to pretty much guarantee removing any minion our opponent plays. We could also ignore their minion and just push additional damage to the face. Bamboozle will punish them for trying to trade with one of our minions, and could lead to some pretty big swings if we get a particularly good unit. Dirty Tricks gives us a way to gain some cards if our opponent tries to get tricky with spells!

While we're including quite a few Secrets, we're also including some more cards that benefit from these. Blackjack Stunner is a great tempo card that can pop a minion back into our opponent's hand and give us time to dish out damage. Shadowjeweler Hanar can get us some additional resources, and give us some big surprises for our opponent if we get something particularly interesting. Keep in mind that the card Discovers a Secret from a DIFFERENT class, not your opponent's class. That means you won't get stuck not getting something against a class without Secrets.

We've got a couple of powerful early game starts that can get the ball rolling quite quickly in our favor. First, we have Secretkeeper that can be followed up with one of our Secrets. If we can keep her alive and healthy, she can be tough to deal with and can dish out quite a bit of early damage. The other start would involve Spymistress , who looks to be some solid early damage. This would especially be the case when we pair it with Ashtongue Slayer . While punching face for 6 on turn two is pretty nutty, we can also get a trade that keeps the Spymistress on the board!

Once we've chipped away enough with our early game minions, we'll be looking to finish the game off by utilizing some minions that keep the board clear for us. Maiev Shadowsong should clear away any type of big taunt or something else we can't bother to deal with. Flik Skyshiv gives us another way to deal with any problematic minions that are preventing us from finishing the job.

Secret Rogue Card Options & Replacements

• Edwin VanCleef - A mainstay of the Rogue class, and is usually going to be a pretty good option when you've got low cost cards in the deck.
• Hench-Clan Sneak - Solid Stealth card if you wanted to go more in that direction and cut back on the Secret synergy.
• Hooked Scimitar - Pretty strong weapon that can deal quite a bit of damage if we can get the combo off.
• Frenzied Felwing - An aggressive card that could likely be played for 0-mana pretty frequently due to our Stealth minions.