Hearthpwn

For a long time now I've been trying to get a mill rogue to work in ladder, the dream has never come true until now.

I believe i have about a 70% winrate with This deck over all and have faced many run of the mill (haha)  aggro locks and shamans. This deck has a 0% winrate against the new divine shield aggro paladin, so just que hoping you wont get it as your opponent.

What I think has helped me create this deck the most is all the healing, you almost always have a heal to gang up against aggro match ups, and many to sustain you to that point. If it so happens you get to a control match up, you just use the healing minions as bodies to stall you into the late game. Bran has good synergy with both these cards and can be essential to helping you survive/kill your enemy.

Keep any coldlights in your hand ALWAYS. If you're against an aggro deck it's good to keep backstabs, S.I. agents, farseers, refreshment vendors, and sometimes even shadow steps (for extra healing from battlecry minions) and shadowstrikes (to kill council men). If you're against priest, hard mulligan for coldlights, even if you have good cards in your hand against priest, throw them all away to get the coldlight. If you're against shaman, it might be a good idea to keep any saps you have to prepare for the 4 mana 7/7. if you get prep vanish in hand against a shaman, it might be a good idea to keep these as well, because shaman can often pump out a lot of early game minions in the first few turns.

Do not play your coldlights unless you have a way to preserve them, if they kill both of your coldlights before you shadowstep/gangup them, your win condition and deck is dead. There is an exception if you strongly believe you can draw a gangup, shadowcaster, or shadowstep in the cards you get from the coldlight. If you're against aggro for the love of god, dont use your coldlights until you need an answer for the board.

Synergies:

Bran and coldlight: One of the most important in the deck, drawing 4 cards can be a life saver, can be used to hope for a way to conserve your coldlights, draw answers to the board I.E. prep into vanish, finishing off your enemy with extreme fatigue damage due to making him draw 4 cards, milling your enemy, digging for the heals to save your life, digging for the sap to kill his big minion and filling your enemies hand for your vanish to kill his minions on board.

Shadowstep and cold light: This will always be a good cheap combo to get extra miles out of your coldlight, and it can be used to preserve it if you need cards, you do not always need to play your coldlight for 1 mana right after you shadow step it, if it's going to die and you haven't ganged it up yet and have answers to the board, keep it in your hand.

Shadowstep and your healing minions: these can be used to get a double heal battle cry out of any of your minions to ensure you have enough health to survive an enemies onslaught.

Bran and cult apocathery: This combo can be used to heal almost as much as a activated reno if your enemy has a full board, buying you another turn. This can also be used with refreshment vendor and farseer to a lesser extent.

coldlight and vanish: if you're planning to vanish your enemy's board, throw the coldlight down before hand to do one or both of A: fill up your enemies hand so that his board gets destroyed when you vanish his minions B: get more uses out of the same coldlight because it will return to your hand as well.

gangup and your healing minions: up against and aggro deck? consider using one or both of your gang ups to get more healing into your deck and saving your coldlights after you stop his aggression.

Backstab and S.I. agent: if you're against a shaman, chances are he's gonna trog or golem you very fast, this obviously isn't a huge synergy, but if you backstab it and si agent you'll kill these.

Coldlight and sap: if your opponent has 8 cards in hand, play your coldlight before you sap his big minion so that it can't go back into his hand and it gets destroyed. This is usually how i deal with C'thun if i dont mill it, make sure you check the count though, you don't want to give him another c'thun.

Bloodmage thalnos and your spells: bloodmage thalnos can be pretty helpful for clearing the board with fan of knives, and getting the one extra damage for shadow strike to clear minions, often he'll be a good way to kill your enemy shamans turn 1 trog with a backstab or a warriors 6 health minions with shadow strike.

shadowcaster and bran: rarely will you get the liberty to make this combo, but if you can pull it off, shadow casters battle cry can end up activating 2 times either giving you 2 essential heals, or 2 more 1 mana coldlights to speed up the drawing process. Sometimes you may even choose to copy bran with shadowcaster and wait to use the copies you get when your draw your coldlights.

Things not to do:

Do not prep before you plan to use the backstab, it will use your prep even though it's 0 mana

Do not gang up any cards that draw cards for only you, this will kill your win condition

Do not give cards to aggro in the early stage of the game if you don't need an answer

Do not play bran hoping your skulker will do 4 damage to every undamaged enemy minion, it will not.

Do not play bran thinking your S.I. agent's "deal 2 damage" will trigger twice, it's a combo not a battlecry

Do not mill yourself unless its absolutely needed, always count how many cards you have in your hands and use backstab on your own minions, or prep nothing to keep your card count down if you really need to.

 

I hope you have as much fun with this deck as i have.