Miracle Rogue Matchup Analysis: Vs. Control Warrior

justjimmy

Published: Jun 1, 2014 08:04 am

Welcome friends! My name is Blackacre and I piloted the Miracle Rogue to Top 20 NA. After receiving numerous requests for a guide on how to mulligan/play each of the major matchups in the metagame I have given in and created a comprehensive guide, containing 11 matchups analysis.

Matchup Analysis

This matchup is somewhat strange because it will almost always go into the late game, but the outcome is usually decided in the early portions of the game. So how does this happen? Well the way the Warrior wins this game is by effectively gaining enough health that the Miracle Rogue player doesn’t have the damage in his/her deck to finish the game. The most crucial card in achieving this goal for the Warrior is armorsmith. The 4 toughness of the Armorsmith makes it very difficult for the Miracle Rogue player to answer in the first few turns. If the Warrior is able to use this time to play additional minions and gain 4+ armor from the Armorsmith’s ability then you will start to have difficulty winning the game in the long run. Thankfully, many Control Warriors have been cutting down to one Armorsmith in their decks.

We have two priorities in this game. First, as mentioned we want to stop the Warrior from being able to gain large amounts of value from Armorsmiths. Second, we want to accumulate the necessary lethal damage as fast as possible through the use of our high impact cards. The longer we take to get to lethal damage the more opportunities we give the Warrior to increase their effective health through use of the hero power.

Mulligan Guide

Keepers

eviscerate

Remember the 4 toughness that causes us so many problems with Armorsmith? Well Eviscerate happens to do 4 damage. Keep one of these in your opening hand and be thankful when you are able to remove an Armorsmith before it can gain too much armor.

loot-hoarder

This is our ideal turn 2 play. While it doesn’t match up well against an early Armorsmith that is simply a risk we have to take. Control Warrior doesn’t have a lot of efficient answers to a Loot Hoarder.

azure-drake/gadgetzan-auctioneer

The faster we can accumulate lethal damage against a Control Warrior the less time they have to use their hero power to gain effective health. Since that is the case we should be focused on high impact cards like azure-drake and gadgetzan-auctioneer. Because of how important these cards are the matchup I would suggest that you keep up to 2 of these in your starting hand.

Situational

conceal

Conceal is a great card to keep IF we have a Gadgetzan Auctioneer in hand to combo with it. Otherwise you should mulligan it.

edwin-vancleef

VC is fine in this matchup, but does not truly shine. The Control Warrior has a multitude of ways to remove a large VC. Because this is the case, you should not overextend to play a large VC. Additionally, many modern Control Warrior lists play big-game-hunter. It is best to only make VC a 6/6 even if you could make him larger without expending additional resources. This said, keeping VC in your opening hand is still a strong play if you have the ability to play him as a 4/4 or 6/6 in the early turns. He will likely eat a piece of removal and that is a fine trade to make.

bloodmage-thalnos

Thalnos is a fine card in the matchup, but it shouldn’t be thought of as a turn 2 play. There is simply too much danger of an Armorsmith or an acolyte-of-pain abusing the 1 attack of Thalnos to run it out in that manner. Instead think of Thalnos as a combo starter and hold it for a time when you can use the spell power.

Throw It Back

backstab

Backstab has very limited use in this matchup beyond being a combo starter. The only 2 health minion in the Warrior’s deck is cruel-taskmaster, and it has already done its work once it is on the field. We are much better off mulliganing these in search of higher impact cards.

preparation

The Warrior will not be applying much if any early game pressure to us. That means we will have plenty of time to draw into our Preparations later in the game. Mulligan these in search of more important cards.

shadowstep

In this matchup we will almost always want to save our Shadowsteps for finishing the game with Leeroy Jenkins. Because that is the case they are effectively dead cards until the turn we aim to win the game. Therefore we are much better off mulliganing these for better early game options.

cold-blood

Cold Blood should never be kept in your opening hand.

deadly-poison

Deadly Poison is of limited usage in the matchup. The only 3 health targets for it are Acolyte of Pain and Kor’kron Elite, both of which will extract value in this trade. Mulligan these in search of better options.

blade-flurry

The Control Warrior deck does not generally flood the board with minions. It is rare for them to have more than 1 or 2 in play at once. As this is the case, Blade Flurry does not particularly shine in this matchup.

sap

Sap is a fine card in the matchup. It can be useful later in the game against high cost minions such as ragnaros-the-firelord and baron-geddon, but it isn’t the type of card we want at the beginning of the game. Since this is the case we should mulligan these in search of better options.

shiv

Shiv will primarily act as a combo starter in this matchup. That is a fine usage for the card, but it isn’t something that we want in our opening hand.

fan-of-knives

FoK is very bad in the matchup. Control Warriors don’t play large numbers of minions and the ones they do play often benefit from taking damage such as Armorsmith and Acolyte of Pain. Mulligan this card away every time.

si7-agent

This is not a card that we are excited about in the matchup. The Control Warrior has too many ways to remove a 3 health minion to expect it to survive for long. If we are able to get 5 damage from the card (2 from combo and 3 from a swing) we are happy. Mulligan this in search of better options.

earthen-ring-farseer

The battlecry will almost never offer value to you on turn 3 in this matchup, and the 3/3 body is easily dealt with by the Control Warrior. As such, we are better off mulliganing this card.

leeroy-jenkins

Leeroy Jenkins should never be kept in your opening hand.