Editor’s Note: With the new Standard Format in 2016 for Hearthstone, we highly recommend going for cards in the Classic set and Whispers of the Old Gods (Standard Format). Here are budget guides, also from Sheng, to get you started!
- Budget Standard Standard C’Thun Druid
- Budget Standard Midrange Hunter
- Budget Standard C’Thun Mage
- Budget Standard  Aggro Paladin
- Budget Standard C’Thun Priest
- Budget Standard C’Thun Rogue
- Budget Standard Midrange Shaman
- Budget Standard Zoo WarlockÂ
- Budget Standard Combo Warrior
Introduction
Greetings, I’m Sheng, a Legend rank constructed and 7.5 win-average arena player. I run HearthstoneCoaching.com where our coaches have helped many students achieve the same.
Whether you’re a newer player, or an experienced one who just wants to find the most efficient way to spend your cash or in-game gold, you can never go wrong by investing in Hearthstone’s single player expansions. Both The Curse of Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain have provide unique and useful cards that cannot be unlocked anywhere else. This is the rogue Hearthstone Deck.
My Blackrock Mountain decks are a new series of guides where I try to construct the most  effective Hearthstone decks I can for each class, with only one contraint — that I only use cards from the Basic, Naxxramas, and Blackrock Mountain card sets.
These 0 dust decks are meant to help newer players kickstart their Hearthstone journey, by providing unique and viable decks that can be used against friends and foe on casual or ladder (though you may want to check out the upgrade section at the end of each guide to get further on the ladder).
Deck Playstyle
In general, our Blackrock Mountain Tempo Rogue deck hasn’t changed much since Naxxramas. This is partly because Blackrock Mountain really didn’t include too many new cards that synergized well with our existing deck. While Rogue’s dark-iron-skulker class card isn’t terrible, it isn’t good enough to replace loatheb or sludge-belcher at the somewhat crowded 5 mana slot, and there isn’t much that synergizes with gang-up.
So, following the tried and true method of if it ain’t broken don’t fix it, I’ve only made three changes in this deck, and I think they make this deck a bit stronger overall. You can check out the Blackrock Mountain Improvements sections to see which.
Minions – 22
2x zombie-chow
- The Zombie Chow is strictly an early game minion used to pressure your opponent’s board early. The goal of casting a Zombie Chow onto the board early is to trade with your opponent’s more expensive minions before its deathrattle becomes a liability. There’s very little downside to killing off your own Zombie Chow when your opponent is close to full health, but playing him later in the game might just put your opponent out of reach if he has a way to deal with it.
2x acidic-swamp-ooze
- The Ooze is a great little card that has an incredible battlecry against more than half the classes in the game (Hunter, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior). His 3/2 body for 2 mana passes the Vanilla Test, and there’s no downside to playing him even if the battlecry doesn’t destroy a weapon.
2x haunted-creeper
- This spider is our counter to aggressive decks that like to drop multitudes of 1 health minions. He’s a mini harvest-golem that spawns two 1/1 tokens instead of a single 2/1 token. The spawned tokens become nice targets for buffs.
1x kobold-geomancer
- A tech card used to gain more value from backstab and fan-of-knives. I’ve won many games against aggro from behind where I’ve played a kobold-geomancer and fan-of-knives on turn five to clear their board.
2x shade-of-naxxramas
- The Naxxramas card set gave us several neutral 3 mana minions to consider. At the end of the day, I went with the Shade because he has the least number of drawbacks. deathlord looks formidable, but is an easy target for a shadow-word-pain or stampeding-kodo. dancing-swords looks like a card that can trade 2 for 1, but ends up drawing your opponent a card, nullifying its advantage. The Shade is also nice, because when left untouched, he’ll gain one attack and one health each turn, making him more and more valuable.
2x shattered-sun-cleric
- 3 mana for 3/2 isn’t mana efficient, but the battlecry more than makes up for it. The downside is that if you don’t have a minion on the board, this card suffers.
- The ideal scenario is to play this on the same turn a minion you control can trade with something equal in value and survive, or can trade up to kill something more expensive.
1x chillwind-yeti
- The Yeti is the benchmark on which all other 4 mana minions are compared. Not only does he pass the Vanilla Test with flying colors, he trades favorably with most other 2, 3, and 4 mana minions. The Yeti has no downsides and is a welcome sight whether you’re behind or ahead in the game.
1x hungry-dragon
- Due to his drawback, we only play one copy of Hungry Dragon because it gives us options when we have Chillwind Yeti in our hand as well. Generally, Hungry Dragon is better than the Yeti if you have the means to deal with whatever the Dragon will spawn, which in our deck is pretty often.
1x ogre-magi
- Another tech card. kobold-geomancer is too weak to play two copies of, and this is a hedge against top-decking a second geomancer late game. 4 mana for a 4/4 is fair, and the spell power is good.
2x senjin-shieldmasta
- Taz’dingo! The Sen’jin Shieldmasta trades one point of attack in exchange for taunt, but it’s generally a fair trade. While a Sen’jin won’t 1 hit kill a 4/4 or 3/4 minion, he’ll be able to protect your lower health minions from dying to favorable trades from your opponent, and can be the key to slowing down the game against aggressive rush-down decks.
1x loatheb
- Loatheb is an amazing card… when played correctly. 5 mana for a 5/5 is fair, but it’s Loatheb’s ability to shutdown opponent’s spells that makes him so valuable. Play Loatheb on turn 6 before a mage can cast flamestrike on turn 7 and he’ll win you the game.
2x sludge-belcher
- If you thought the senjin-shieldmasta was good, well just wait until you see his bigger brother, the Sludge Belcher. Sludge Belcher is an extremely annoying card to deal with, because when he dies, he leaves behind a smaller taunt. This effectively shuts down very aggressive decks, that are generally forced to use silence to get around him. Another benefit to the Sludge Belcher’s deathrattle is his synergy with kelthuzad. Good luck getting past that wall of taunts when both are on the board at the same time!
2x boulderfist-ogre
- The true definition of a big dumb minion. Except actually, now that I think about it, the Boulderfist Ogre may actually be the smartest Ogre in the Hearthstone universe given that he’ll always hit the target you ask him to. For 6 mana, you get a 6/7 minion that isn’t affected by silence, the-black-knight, and big-game-hunter. He’s a workhorse in this deck and does much of the heavy lifting to help you secure games.
1x kelthuzad
- Kel’Thuzad is probably the most win condition in our deck. If you have any semblance of a board going into turn 8, he has a good chance of winning the game for you. His value only goes up when you have deathrattle minions on the board that spawn more minions.
Spells – 7
2x backstab
- Amazing tempo card. Can often kill a 2 mana minion by itself.
2x deadly-poison
- Either use this on your assassins-blade to deal 5 damage (which can finish games), or on your hero power to deal 3 damage to enemy minions.
1x sap
- Because this card is fairly situational, I only run one copy. Its cheap casting cost means you can play sap and a few other minions on the same turn. I keep this card in my starting hand against Druid to bounce back big taunts.
2x fan-of-knives
- Not much cheap removal in the basic rogue set. This card by itself isn’t too valuable, but chained with an ogre-magi or kobold-geomancer can be amazing. I usually try to save this card until I have one of those two cards to increase its spell power with.
Weapons – 1
1x assassins-blade
- A great card that will win you games by itself. Only play one copy because of its high durability. Having two in your hand at once isn’t an ideal situation.
Blackrock Mountain Improvements
hungry-dragon- Initially, I played two copies of these to replace the chillwind-yeti, but sometimes found myself wishing that I had played the Yeti instead after seeing what the Hungry Dragon spawned for my opponent. The battlecry can be a significant downside if you’re behind on the board (the worst case scenario is that your opponent control of the board and then bounces your Dragon back to your hand with something like sap). Having mitigates this weakness somewhat as we can choose between the Yeti and the Dragon depending on what the situation is on the board if both are in our hand.
- While not a Blackrock Mountain card, I wanted to note that after play-testing this deck many times, I’ve come to realize that Sludge Belcher is just a more effective card at the 5 slot than spectral-knight, which the Belcher subsititutes for. This is because Sludge Belcher works wonders against aggro decks and has excellent synergy with kelthuzad
Mulligan Guide
In general, you want to mulligan so that you can put out minions on your first three turns. If you’re going second, feel free to keep a single 4 mana minion so that you can coin it out on turn 3. Coining out a minion on turn 3 is actually a significant tempo boost, as a card like chillwind-yeti can be used to trade against at least two lower cost minions.
Cards to Keep
- 0 Mana: backstab
- 1 Mana: deadly-poison, zombie-chow
- 2 Mana:Â acidic-swamp-ooze, haunted-creeper, sap (vs Druid)
- 3 Mana: shade-of-naxxramas, shattered-sun-cleric
- 4 Mana: chillwind-yeti, senjin-shieldmasta
Remember, you want to plan out your first three turns with your opening hand, so if you already have a 1 mana and 2 mana minion, you should mulligan away your remaining card or two to dig for a play on turn 3.
Upgrades
Here are a few upgrades that will improve your deck.
- Minions: knife-juggler, harvest-golem, si7-agent
- Spells: eviscerate, blade-flurry (1 Copy)
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the guide to our Blackrock Mountain Tempo Rogue deck. As always I’d be happy to answer questions from you in the comments section. 🙂
Coaching Lessons
If you’re interested in reaching Legend rank, or earning unlimited gold from arena, my team at HearthstoneCoaching.com would love to help! We’ve provided over a thousand hours of excellent coaching to students around the world. 
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