Rogue access to all secrets idea

Submitted 1 year, 8 months ago by

First off, I have no expectation that the idea I present below will actually happen. I just wanted to put it out there to bring in other thoughts and opinions since I find it a surprisingly interesting possibility that's worth entertaining before next week's card reveals show it (probably) won't happen.

So what's the idea? Well, we know rogue is getting some secret stuff this expansion, but we don't yet know what the secrets themselves are. The idea is that there are no new rogue secrets, but instead the second rogue legendary lets you use secrets from other classes when building the deck.

Now, normally I'd be the first person to shoot down ideas about multi-class deck construction, but in this limited case my hunch is it might actually be OK. The primary reason being that secrets are rarely that good on their own, and their real strength almost always comes from the secret synergy cards instead. There are a few exceptions to that, but even most of the good secrets wouldn't suddenly cause any big crisis because the very nature of secrets puts control over their power into the opponent's hands. So the rogue couldn't really exploit some hitherto unavailable combo that usually plagues multi-class deck-building.

Plus of course, rogue's full list of secret synergies is currently very limited, being only Shadowjeweler Hanar, Blackjack Stunner, Sparkjoy Cheat and Ghastly Gravedigger. These aren't made significantly more dangerous by having access to the other classes secrets, and introducing all-class secret access while there's no dangerous synergies around would be the best time to do it.

The burgle rogue side of things is probably where real problems arise, though I'm not sure they matter much. Secrets are often quite good to get for Tess and Contraband Stash because you can guarantee they will be useful when re-played, but they do lose their secrecy in the process so they don't cause massive trouble. It's also already super easy to get cards from other classes into your hand for burgle synergies, so you don't really need to add out-of-class cards into the deck to make that easier (especially with Maestra around).

Currently the biggest issue I can think of is that Ice Block exists, and Wild won't be thankful for two of these being added alongside Evasion, Cloak of Shadows and Valeera the Hollow, especially as the Ice Blocks could be replayed a couple of times with things like Contraband Stash. That's really not fun to play against. At least anti-secret tech and Ashen Elemental exist for when that gets too obnoxious.

So what do you think? Have I missed something or is it a surprisingly plausible idea?

  • AngryShuckie's Avatar
    1705 1735 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    First off, I have no expectation that the idea I present below will actually happen. I just wanted to put it out there to bring in other thoughts and opinions since I find it a surprisingly interesting possibility that's worth entertaining before next week's card reveals show it (probably) won't happen.

    So what's the idea? Well, we know rogue is getting some secret stuff this expansion, but we don't yet know what the secrets themselves are. The idea is that there are no new rogue secrets, but instead the second rogue legendary lets you use secrets from other classes when building the deck.

    Now, normally I'd be the first person to shoot down ideas about multi-class deck construction, but in this limited case my hunch is it might actually be OK. The primary reason being that secrets are rarely that good on their own, and their real strength almost always comes from the secret synergy cards instead. There are a few exceptions to that, but even most of the good secrets wouldn't suddenly cause any big crisis because the very nature of secrets puts control over their power into the opponent's hands. So the rogue couldn't really exploit some hitherto unavailable combo that usually plagues multi-class deck-building.

    Plus of course, rogue's full list of secret synergies is currently very limited, being only Shadowjeweler Hanar, Blackjack Stunner, Sparkjoy Cheat and Ghastly Gravedigger. These aren't made significantly more dangerous by having access to the other classes secrets, and introducing all-class secret access while there's no dangerous synergies around would be the best time to do it.

    The burgle rogue side of things is probably where real problems arise, though I'm not sure they matter much. Secrets are often quite good to get for Tess and Contraband Stash because you can guarantee they will be useful when re-played, but they do lose their secrecy in the process so they don't cause massive trouble. It's also already super easy to get cards from other classes into your hand for burgle synergies, so you don't really need to add out-of-class cards into the deck to make that easier (especially with Maestra around).

    Currently the biggest issue I can think of is that Ice Block exists, and Wild won't be thankful for two of these being added alongside Evasion, Cloak of Shadows and Valeera the Hollow, especially as the Ice Blocks could be replayed a couple of times with things like Contraband Stash. That's really not fun to play against. At least anti-secret tech and Ashen Elemental exist for when that gets too obnoxious.

    So what do you think? Have I missed something or is it a surprisingly plausible idea?

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  • NegativeNemsy's Avatar
    405 206 Posts Joined 07/10/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    Highly doubt the devs would let you do this in the deck construction phase.  This type of experimentation is what modes like duels are for.  We don't know what is coming in the next 4 expansions. Cheap paladin secrets would be very abuseable with combo cards.  I also can't imagine how unfun pirate rogue in wild would be against Freezing Trap and Explosive Runes.  I do not think Ice Block is that problematic nowadays.

    They would probably take the safe route and make a legendary that converts your current spells in hand into secrets from other classes or just shuffle 5 random secrets into your deck.

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  • AngryShuckie's Avatar
    1705 1735 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
    Quote From NegativeNemsy

    Highly doubt the devs would let you do this in the deck construction phase.  This type of experimentation is what modes like duels are for.  We don't know what is coming in the next 4 expansions. Cheap paladin secrets would be very abuseable with combo cards.  I also can't imagine how unfun pirate rogue in wild would be against Freezing Trap and Explosive Runes.  I do not think Ice Block is that problematic nowadays.

    They would probably take the safe route and make a legendary that converts your current spells in hand into secrets from other classes or just shuffle 5 random secrets into your deck.

    Not knowing what's coming in the next 4 expansions doesn't worry me. If nothing stuck out as abusable in all 8 years' of secrets in Wild, it's unlikely they struggle to keep things tame for a year or so.

    Rogue already has so many decent 1-mana cards I doubt the availability of paladin secrets would matter much for combo activation. Some pally secrets are quite good, but I'd be surprised if they out-competed the cards rogue can already use for anything other than secret synergies.

    I'd also be a little surprised if Wild pirate rogue squeezed in Explosive and Freezing Trap, especially as they'd have to find space for the legendary that allows them to do this too. That deck is better at keeping the opponent's board clean than the usual aggro hunter decks that fit those traps in, and they could already use rogue's stall cards like Sap if they wanted that sort of effect.

    I agree the devs are much more likely to take a safe route with another secret-based legendary (if that's even what it ends up being), though they were pretty brave with giving us Hanar to replicate the most notorious boss in Dungeon Run. Still, this is an expansion where they have given extra freedoms in the deck construction phase via Renathal, and Duels has already provided the technology for multi-class deck building, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.

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  • linkblade91's Avatar
    Senior Writer Serra Angel 1700 2763 Posts Joined 02/09/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    Blizzard should look into a long-term solution to all the Secret Rogue stuff they want to do; I say just make them evergreen/continuous, instead of only handing out the occasional cycle. Then we wouldn't need to leech from other classes :P

    Still, your idea is cool and could be really flavorful. We just need to somehow get Mysterious Challenger into Rogue haha

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  • DragonDraena's Avatar
    640 436 Posts Joined 08/10/2021
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    Tbh, I think the deck building tech might limit them here. I doubt Team 5 has the code in place to support the scenario where I'm creating a Rogue deck, and when I add Legendary Secretive Catburglar, then suddenly my pool of available cards increases by the number of other secrets in my collection. 

    I think you are correctly guessing that one of the Rogue cards we haven't met yet will offer access to other class secrets. I'll wager that it'll be a Battlecry: Add 2 random secrets to your hand. Infuse (2): Add 4. 

    Secret Rogue was a fun deck in the Galakrond era. I look forward to playing a fresh version of it. 

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