Rogue

Using unseen blade, blinding speed, and subtle poison, Rogues can dispatch their enemies before escaping without a trace. Unleash a devastating chain of minions, spells, and attacks all within a single turn.

 Rogue is one of 11 classes in Hearthstone.

Heroes

Rogue is represented by the following heroes. Valeera Sanguinar is the default hero of Rogue.

Heroes

Alternate portraits

Background

Main article: Rogue

For rogues, the only code is the contract, and their honor is purchased in gold. Free from the constraints of a conscience, these mercenaries rely on brutal and efficient tactics. Lethal assassins and masters of stealth, they will approach their marks from behind, piercing a vital organ and vanishing into the shadows before the victim hits the ground. Rogues can dip their weapons in paralyzing toxins that render foes unable to defend themselves. These silent stalkers wear leather armor so they can move unencumbered, ensuring that they land the first strike.

With the rogue’s poisons and speed, the first strike is often the last step before the killing blow.

Hero Power

Main article: Dagger Mastery

Always have a blade at the ready.

The rogue Hero Power offers some ability to maintain board control, as it allows your hero to destroy 1-Health minions. This allows you to establish control and force them to waste valuable removal early on. This can also allow you to keep your minions alive longer, adding value. Be careful though, don't take your own Health too low attacking minions or you can tip the advantage into a disadvantage very quickly!

Replacement Hero Powers

• Poisoned Daggers is the upgraded Hero Power.
• Valeera the Hollow Battlecry will replace the current Hero Power with Death's Shadow, as well as replacing the hero.
• Bazaar Burglary will replace the current Hero Power with Ancient Blades once the Quest is completed.
• Galakrond, the Nightmare will replace the current Hero Power with Galakrond's Guile, as well as replacing the hero.

Traits

Combo

It’s good to have a plan. Combos are powerful effects only activated if another card is played from your hand before the combo card is played.

Combo is an ability where the stated effect occurs only if the card is not the first one played during the turn. Playing any card is sufficient to trigger a Combo, but Hero Powers will not trigger Combos. Cards with this ability are limited to the rogue class. Examples:

• Using Backstab and then Eviscerate will trigger Eviscerate's Combo effect, making it deal 4 damage instead of 2.
• Using Preparation and then Headcrack will trigger Headcrack's Combo effect, returning it to your hand next turn.

Featured cards

Replaying Cards

Once is never enough. A Rogue can utilize their subtle techniques to play spells and minions more than once. Elude retaliation against your minions or double up on powerful effects.

Featured cards

A Flurry of Spells

In the cutthroat world of a Rogue, hesitation means death. Rogues can sling spells with crippling and deadly effects in quick succession to incapacitate their enemy or build an overwhelming force of minions.

Featured cards

How to get cards

Core cards

Raising Rogue up to level 10 awards 16 Core Rogue cards (31 copies), while winning up to 500 games in Ranked, Arena and Duels awards golden copies of existing cards. All Core cards are uncraftable and cannot be crafted or disenchanted.

Starting cards

Rogue starts with the following cards:

Levels 2-10

Up to level 10, reaching each level will award the player two copies (one at level 10) of a new Core Rogue card.

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7

Level 8

Level 9

Level 10

Expansion cards

Rogue pack

Main article: Card pack

Rogue's expansion cards can be obtained mostly by obtaining corresponding card packs or Rogue class packs. The player can buy them in Shop with gold or real money, or get them through various sources. Some cards may be available through various promotions, like logging in to get them.

Mini-set cards, while can be obtained like expansion cards, can also be obtained by buying its bundle available in Shop for a limited-time. The player can buy the bundle with gold or real money.

Expansions cards are also craftable and can be obtained by crafting them with Arcane Dust.

Adventure cards

Main article: Adventure

Adventure cards can be obtained by completing their Adventure's encounters. They are uncraftable until the player completes the Adventure or their set rotates to Wild format. The player can buy the Adventure with gold for each individual part, or real money for the whole of it.

Cards

List cards subpages

Main

Breakdown of Rogue cards in both Standard and Wild formats can be seen in the following table.

Rogue card statistics

Rarity	Hero	Minion	Spell	Weapon	Location	Anomaly
Free	0	1	16	2	0	0
Common	0	62	60	3	0	0
Rare	0	53	43	9	1	0
Epic	0	27	24	9	0	0
Legendary	4	44	6	1	0	0

Strategy and gameplay

The rogue class has a number of different play styles. One of the main threats a rogue presents is the ability to do a lot of damage quickly, using Combo effects together with the rogue's Hero Power weapon to do surprising burst damage. Minions like Questing Adventurer, Mana Addict, and Edwin VanCleef can be buffed up to huge amounts of damage by using the rogue's arsenal of numerous low-cost spell cards, while cards like Gadgetzan Auctioneer give the draw power needed to sustain combos. Other good rogue burst cards include Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Deadly Poison and Cold Blood, as well as their various direct damage spells.

A Combo card is a card that has an additional effect if it is played after any other card. These effects can range from additional damage to drawing another card. In general Combo rewards the use of cheap cards (primarily spells) and allows the rogue to deal large amounts of damage in a single turn. Synergistic rogue cards include Preparation, Backstab and Counterfeit Coin. Edwin VanCleef is the archetypal Combo card, potentially growing into a monster if the rogue can play enough cards that turn.

Rogues are exceptional at using single target damaging abilities on both minions and heroes with cards like Eviscerate, Shadow Strike, and Headcrack, as well as minion Battlecries like SI:7 Agent, Dark Iron Skulker and Undercity Valiant. This aspect can be augmented with decks focused on increasing Spell Damage which allows rogues to whittle down the enemy hero with strengthened spells while also buffing weak spells like Backstab and Fan of Knives into formidable removal cards. Rogues also possess many single target hard removal like Assassinate, Vilespine Slayer, and Blade of C'Thun to push aside whatever huge minion the opponent plays to block their way while keep them defenseless as their health is chipped away at.

The rogue Hero Power Dagger Mastery provides a constant opportunity for low damage removal or hero damage, but can be improved with cards like Deadly Poison, Buccaneer, and Goblin Auto-Barber to much higher levels, in turn setting up the possibility of a Blade Flurry for high damage removal. Rogues can also equip a range of other weapons, such as Assassin's Blade, Perdition's Blade, Deadly Fork, Self-Sharpening Sword, and Kingsbane.

The rogue weapon theme ties into another: Pirates. Rogues are the only class besides Warriors with class-exclusive Pirates, such as Buccaneer, One-Eyed Cheat, and Captain Hooktusk. The constant availability of weapons to the rogue fits well with the weapon-dependency of Pirate cards like Dread Corsair and Sharkfin Fan, or conversely the availability of low-cost pirates helps fill out a deck that needs quick aggression with a hint of value generation.

Return effects are another theme of the rogue class, allowing their minions to slip away to restore themselves, or forcing the opponent's minions to retreat back into the hand. Shadowstep, Gadgetzan Ferryman, Anub'ar Ambusher and Daring Escape are friendly examples, while Sap, Vanish and Kidnapper offer other options. These effects can be useful for stalling the opponent, or allowing the rogue to benefit multiple times from useful Battlecries. On a related note, Rogues have a number of ways to make copies of their own minions. Cards like Lab Recruiter and Shadow of Death add more copies of a minion to their deck to be drawn later, while Shadowcaster and Sonya Shadowdancer create a miniature copy of a minion; having 1/1 stats isn't much of a drawback when you can activate their powerful effects for just 1 mana.

A theme that has been added to Rogues in more recent expansions is the ability to generate cards from another class. Cards like Pilfer, Burgle, Undercity Huckster, and Academic Espionage take directly the opponent's class, while cards like Clever Disguise, Bazaar Mugger, and Dragon's Hoard takes from anything else. Rogues also have cards that synergizes with cards not of their own class, like Ethereal Peddler, Obsidian Shard, Tess Greymane, and Bazaar Burglary.

Infamous for striking from the shadows, Stealth is a minor rogue theme, with minions like Master of Disguise, Lotus Assassin, Akama, as well as Conceal, which include Stealth synergy cards like Shadow Sensei and Greyheart Sage. Patient Assassin combines Stealth with the Poisonous effect, another minor rogue theme, also seen on Plaguebringer, Pit Snake, and Envenom Weapon.

Rogue is also the only class able to generate The Coin, normally only available at the start of each match, through cards like Cutpurse and Tomb Pillager. Trade Prince Gallywix provides a similar spell in Gallywix's Coin and Counterfeit Coin functions the same as the Coin except they can be added to the deck.

Rogues have cards that can shuffle in advantageous cards into decks, such as Fal'dorei Strider, Academic Espionage, and Waxadred, complementing their talent for card draw with strong value generation.

Rogues are also the fourth class to be able to use Secrets, an ability introduced briefly in Kobolds & Catacombs and Ashes of Outland. Their repertoire of Secrets are small compared to other classes, but nevertheless give them sneaky ways to recover from a disadvantaged state, like Evasion and Bamboozle.

Countering a rogue

• Equipment destruction such as Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones to prevent massive damage output from the rogue's Assassin's Blade and Dagger Mastery.
• Units that make it difficult for the Rogue to attack you in the face directly, helpful effects include Divine Shield and Taunt.
• Bait the use of board clearing abilities such as Assassinate with your second or third strongest minion so that you can safely summon your strongest minions.
• Having a few Spellbreakers can be incredibly effective against a rogue deck because of their affinity towards minions such as Bloodsail Raider.
• Try to play many small minions rather than fewer large ones, since most rogue removal spells are single target.
• Rogues are one of the more fragile classes, so they will have a difficult time stabilizing when they have taken heavy damage early on.

Trivia

• Valeera was chosen to represent the rogue class partially in order to balance faction, race and gender representation across the cast of heroes. As a blood elf female, Valeera added diversity to the cast of characters, as opposed to options such as Mathias Shaw or Edwin VanCleef (human male, already represented by both Anduin and Uther), or Garona Halforcen (a female half-orc, making the fifth orc hero).

• During the game's early development, the rogue class was represented by Edwin VanCleef.

Gallery

Card frames

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  Hero card

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  Minion

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  Spell

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  Weapon

Dual-class

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  Mage/Rogue Minion

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  Mage/Rogue Spell

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  Rogue/Warrior Minion

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  Rogue/Warrior Spell

History

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  Hero card prior to Patch 18.0.0.54613

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  Spell prior to Patch 20.0.0.77662

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  Weapon prior to Patch 18.0.0