How to take out this dominant deck on the ladder.
Love it or loathe, there’s no denying the popularity of Oil Rogue when it comes to climbing to the very highest levels of the ladder in Hearthstone. Now that we’ve moved beyond the earliest stages of Season 16, it’s not such a common deck to see in the upper half of the ladder, but it pays to be aware of the deck’s strengths and weaknesses wherever you currently rank.
If you’re struggling to bust through a wall of these weapon-wielding monsters, we’ve put together some of our top tips for handling the explosive threat presented by the Oil Rogue. Take a look at the bottom of the page for links to our other deck-busting guides.
Prioritise removing the Oil Rogue’s minions
If the Rogue has no minions on the board, it has nothing it can buff with that devastating blade oil. Focus on removing the Oil Rogue’s minions from the board by whatever means you have available, and play for the long-game. It’s almost always the right play to reduce the Rogue’s attacking potential, rather than improving your own.
Punish the Oil Rogue’s mistakes hard
If you’re playing against Oil Rogue in the mid-teen ranks of the ladder, and it’s not the very start of the Season, there’s a good chance you’re playing against someone getting to grips with the deck. Take a look through our Oil Rogue guide so you understand what makes this archetype tick, so that you can punish them hard for any mistakes they make. This will either give you a tell about what they have in their hand, or provide intel about when to begin your main offensive.
Switch decks to counter the Oil Rogue
The Oil Rogue needs to draw into very specifics card to set up their devastating “miracle” board states, so the faster you can burn through the opponent’s health pool, the more likely you are to end the game before a serious threat can manifest itself on the board. Grab an aggro deck – Face Hunter is great for this – then keep snowballing your threat and don’t give your opponent a moment’s rest.
If you’re really struggling in a metagame packed to the rafters with Oil Rogues, and aggro isn’t really your thing, you might prefer to switch out to something like Control Warrior, as this deck has loads of ways of chewing through the Rogue’s minions, and lots of ways to beef up the Warrior’s Health pool via armour generation. It’s a more reliable way of getting the job done, compared to pure aggro.
Tech in some weapon-smashing cards
If you don’t want to switch to a completely different deck and playstyle, but you do want to give yourself the upper hand against the Oil Rogue, consider making room for a card like Acidic Swamp Ooze, or Harrison Jones if you have it in your collection.
Making room for one of these cards has the bonus effect of giving you the means to neutralise that other common metagame threat, the Grim Patron Warrior. Use it to detonate the Deathrattle damage of Death’s Bite before those Grim Patrons or Frothing Berserkers can come out to play.
