Concept - Rogues as the librarians of the Academy. Quiet, stealthy, will shank you if you make too much noise.
This review is 100% accurate, as assessed by our independent team of experts (me). You know you can trust me, because I've marked plenty of reviews as being 100% accurate before, and some of those reviews were accurate, showing that I know what I'm talking about. Any errors can be assumed to be well within the boundaries of accurate assessment... or something.
Copying is just using your resources wisely.
Quote From Noxious This secret is Murozond the Infinite but better. Instead of mindlessly replaying cards, oftentimes to lesser effect, Plagiarize offers extra value through enabling you to choose when to play the cards it grants - with the added drawback that you can't target which cards to replay, an advantage Muruzond still holds.
This is one of those secrets that would scare the living bejeezus out of me when triggered, on the same tier as Counterspell. Simply having it in the pool of available secrets will make any knowledgeable player think twice before dropping a handful of cards in one turn. Its only counters are playing a single, trash card to minimize its effect, or to play a huge bunch of trash cards to burn your opponent's next card draw (and, of course, cards such as Flare that destroy secrets, though decks don't always have space for such tech cards).
All in all, impressive, with the potential of nabbing extremely valuable cards both early and late in the game. I expect we'll be seeing a lot of this secret.
Perfect for outfoxing your opponents.
Quote From Echo Vulpera Toxinblade is a seemingly weak card as it is just a Deadly Poison stapled onto a 3/3 body, but I think it shows a fair amount of potential in tempo rogue. Historically, rogue isnt a fan of 2 drops since their hero power can set up for recent turns and its only been recent that they have started running 2 drops for their curve, albeit not many. This card is a borderline busted one on if you equipped a dagger the turn prior as it will almost always let you kill whatever minion the opponent plays. In a way this card is similar to that of Scalerider with an extra damage stapled onto it. Whether this card will see play depends on how strong Tempo Rogue is, but this card definitely is helping to make it stronger.
Whet you looking at?
Quote From ShadowsOfSense What a strange card. While starting at a miserable 1/4 in stats - admittedly better in Rogue than poor Light's Justice is in Paladin - Self-Sharpening Sword then becomes a 2/3, 3/2 and 4/1 weapon with each attack. Increasing its durability by any means will allow you to continue to grow it. It's a somewhat strange comparison, but you can think of it as a smaller and reversed Gorehowl.
I think this is stronger than it might appear at first. Any buffs to attack or durability (such as the new Vulpera Toxinblade) make it an absolute powerhouse, and the ability to incrementally increase its attack feels like a better and less horribly-worded try at a Poisoned Blade style card.
The fact that the worst thing I can think to say about this card is that it has so much durability that you won't be Hero Powering or using other weapons as often says a lot, I think.
Is your lost pen likely to be in the Confidential Documents drawer? No. Can't hurt to check though.
Quote From Noxious It's… decent. Stealth is always nice, however the stats are average and the effect requires playing another card, making this tough to play on turn 4. If I was looking to generate Combo cards, I'd sooner look towards Whirlkick Master than Shifty Sophomore, which allows for more mana to be used in card generation, as well as being able to generate Combo cards ad infinitum.
Alas, it is a common-quality card. For its rarity, I don't expect too great an effect. It's not terrible, by any means, but its Combo requirement combined with average stats makes it a bit unattractive to play past turns 4-5.
The trick to a secret passage isn't knowing where it is, it's making sure nobody else does.
Quote From Echo Twenty-one years ago Wizards of the Coast printed a card named Memory Jar. It was horribly broken and one month later was banned out of almost every format and restricted to 1 copy in the format with the highest power level. Secret Passage's ability is almost identical to that of Memory Jar, instead only showing 5 cards instead of 7 while being 4 mana cheaper. It is because of this that I find Secret Passage to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest card of the set. While having it only be temporary can cause some issues, the card still boils down to draw 5 in a class fairly well known for being tempo orientated. While it is weak early game, later on it becomes 1 mana draw 2-4 cards which is an absurdly good rate. It is most comparable to Myra's Unstable Element, which was one of the strongest finishers in Tempo Rogue last year and although Secret Passage lets you see less cards overall, the ability to have two of them in the deck to increase consistency is invaluable. I would be very surprised if this card did not have some numbers adjusted on it sometime after its release.
Kel'thuzad is dead serious about dealing with security breaches.
Quote From Demonxz95 This card is honestly not as bad as people are making it out to be. I feel like it looks worse than it actually is because the effect isn't very flashy for a Legendary, which I will fully admit is true. If you read the effect as it dealing 4 damage to a random enemy, then it's not so bad, is it? The 4/2 could even attack face and leave you with a body on the board. When that happens, that's actually quite strong.
Both the card itself, and the discussion surrounding it reminds me of another Rogue Legendary from a set way in the past, Shaku, the Collector. Shaku was initially looked as mediocre and was also criticized for being boring as a Legendary. However, the fact that Shaku had Stealth to help its ability is what actually made it a good card that did see some play. Likewise, the Stealth also helps this card quite a bit. Comparing this card to Shaku, I wouldn't be surprised if this card ended up having the same fate as Shaku and surprising people and actually being a pretty decent card. Stealth synergy is also a thing, so that might help it.
Dual Class Cards
Comments
The main problem of Plagiarize is simply because it its highly matchup dependent. Against most rogues or mage, you can stand to get plenty of value from this card. Against paladin, priest or any midrange deck and the likelihood is that you're getting one card tops. And you've just spent two mana for it. But getting this off hanar is just sick, since you now have a choice of taking or leaving it depending on matchup.
Secret Passage however is completely crazy. You dont need to be hit by bricks to know this is going to get nerfed at some point. The only justification for this to even be printed is simply because without it there's absolutely no reason why any rogue deck wouldn't just play some version of galakrond. That said, whether this card gets nerfed will heavily depend on how aggressive rogue can get, and without Leeroy Jenkins + Shadowstep, I think team5 would consider this 'balanced' - until its not.
I was very disappointed when i opened Infiltrator Lilian as i'm not a fan of aggro strategies. But there's no way this card is bad. It has underwhelming stats but the stealth makes up for it. She can't be removed easily before she can attack and even if they manage to kill her she just comes back immediately with a vengeance. Either way, this is guaranteed damage no matter what. There's some deathrattle synergy potential as well. The card is not as flashy as others but guaranteed damage is always good.
I’ve had some fun with the Deathrattle off meta deck posted here on the front page recently.
Teron Gorefiend also continues to exist.
Not sure if there is a shadow of death stealth Rogue with draw out there but looking to find out. Hoping for lilian
If you have a Vulpera Toxinblade on the board and attack with the Self-Sharpening Sword, will the Toxinblade's +2 attack become permanent? I imagine not, but knowing how buffs act on minions when their attack and health are switched, I am permanently skeptical. Speaking of, though, there's a great idea for one of next season's Fan Creations Competitions - a card that switches your weapon's attack and health!
Fun, interesting, and ultimately useless interaction: Imagine if a Rogue has a Plagiarize up and a Plagiarize in hand when their opponent plays Mindrender Illucia. Could that be an infinite loop (with a cooperating player), or has my mind been ... rended ... by the complexity of things?
Secret Passage is absolutely bonkers, with just one drawback - (I assume) generated cards will be shuffled back into your deck as well. If you have a Passage in your deck, for instance, you don't want to run EVIL Miscreant. All you'd get when you play him from Passage is a worse deck and his soft, shitty body. That doesn't mean that the card is bad - it's definitely still real powerful, as Mr. Irwin would say - but it's a surprisingly effective drawback for Rogue, a class whose main strength at the moment is card generation. Secret Rogue and Aggro Rogue might want Secret Passage, but I don't imagine Galakrond Rogue will. Maybe. Maybe it's just too bleeping strong for that to matter.
Altogether, I wholeheartedly look forward to attempting a Combo Rogue and failing. For the third time.
You just have to make sure you can play the lackeys too. But guess could be bad of you get the discover lackeys. And even if you get miscreant you can play the other cards instead. But i see how it could turn out badly
Actually, Secret Passage does keep generated cards.
Holy freakin' what, why, who, how, what on the seven earth mothers and their randomly generated followers!? Here, I thought they did a neato and subtly balanced a strong card against class weaknesses, but noooooo, Lilian Voss can have her cake and the tokens it generates, too! Bleh. Bleepity bleep bleep. That ain't how them words work, Blizzard!
I really don't see how Infiltrator Lilian is going to be played. Surely, if Stealth Rogue wants that statline, it'd run Jungle Panther, right? It has good, aggressive stats! But it doesn't run it. A deathrattle doesn't really make up for the twice lost tempo, the fact that a 4/2 Stealth is not good enough and the +1 mana on top of that. (not even considering the fact that it's a Legendary)
Lilian doesn't have to be played in Stealth Rogue. It's a better Piloted Shredder, and any Rogue deck can play this. It's a card that your opponent has to remove, and its deathrattle makes it a problem in doing so. Worst case scenario, you use the 4 damage to clear something on the board, and the deathrattle clears another one; that's a pretty good swing in tempo. It's not an amazingly flashy card that has a huge board impact, it just looks like a solid card with a simple, solid effect. It reminds me of how people saw Zilliax as only decent because it didn't have great stats or a very strong effect.
That said, it's still possible that this card is trash.
On the surface, Shifty Sophomore seems fine to play on Turn 4. Relatively high health and stealth makes it safe to activate on the next turn, using a 2 mana spell like Sap and get a SI:7 Agent ready to go. The problem with Sophomore and Whirlkick Master is that SI:7 or Eviscerate (and maybe an extra Edwin if you can manage to have the extra cards to fuel him) are really the only Combo cards worth getting, you're just as likely to generate garbage like Headcrack or Perdition's Blade.
Shifty Sophomore's best hope is if Stealth Rogue can step out of Galakrond's shadow, but alas I don't see that happening.
The new combo cards (Coerce, Wand Thief and Brain Freeze) are all great to get, making the standard pool actually pretty solid on the whole. There are a couple of duds certainly, but I wouldn't put Headcrack or Perdition's Blade in that category. Both can be reasonably useful, and Headcrack especially can be a great card to generate if you are the aggressor in a given match-up.
I fully agree with and stated similar things about Secret Passage and Infiltrator Lilian on their revel days. Secret Passage is just begging to be nerfed day 1. The fact that you can drop it for "free" if you have The Coin or a Preparation which will enable you to trigger any combo cards you get with the draw is obviously good. ADD that you do not lose the cards after the turn ends and you just swap back makes this even better.
As for Infiltrator Lilian, her stat lines are mediocre at best. BUT the fact that she has stealth and a deathrattle effect that will only serve to knock something else to the ground and possibly go face and stick around for a turn as well. Add onto it that if she is around on your opponent's turn and they kill her, her "come back" will punch something that turn as well. Rogue certainly got a lot of good cards to play with in this expansion.
You just ticked me off to something that I can't wait to try! The main issue with Preparation has always been that running it makes your hand very small very quickly, but Secret Passage lessens that risk. Finally, I might be able to play Prep again.
I know right? It gives you 2 spells played with "no" mana, and when you draw up the next 5, you could very well get Edwin early game for something scary or the miscreants as well. Miracle Rogue, here we go.