I have been told this list is very similar to another list going around. Originally I did not include Temple of Deceit at all and was only running 2 copies of Rankle, Master of Pranks in favor of 4 Zareth San, the Trickster and found Zareth, while excellent at ambushing opponents and putting their Lotus Cobras, card:Omanth, Locus of Creations and Embercleaves to good use on our side of the board, I found that he frequently was a one-off or two off (if I drew a second copy) and wasn't winning me any clutch victories. After playing a friend in a rogue mirror and seeing him makes the plays even with Temples I decided to dip my toe into Dimir's temple waters. I also originally had several Jwari Disruption
s, Maddening Cacophonys in the deck and was also losing too many games for having drawn those cards. They didn't impact the battlefield enough in a meaningful enough way. When I swapped them out in favor of a shorter list with more 4-of's I found myself losing very narrow defeats. I'd be either one or two attacks away from victory and find myself in a position where my opponent stabilized and started gaining ground. This is a deck that needs to keep the edge on from draw to death, and stalling because you are hoping your opponent taps out on a bomb so that you can get value out of your lousy counter-land wasn't good. I also found myself losing to Cobras I didn't draw my Drown in the Lochs in time to deal with. I absolutely hate that Bloodchief's Thirst is sorcery speed, but when you need to kill a Cobra you need to kill a Cobra and that's that. Thirst was a good compromise between cheap removal for lifelinking clerics and snakes and champions and demons and whatever other garbage your opponents are hoping to get value from in the early game to being able to hit Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or whatever other Planeswalkers your opponents are trying to punish you with in the mid-game. Since Drown works as both a counter and a sword, I try to save them for as long as possible to avoid a board wipe or something else nasty that I can't or don't want to deal with.
As for the rest. Zulaport Duelist is not a card I have seen in any of my mirror matches, which was starting to make me feel as though maybe it was a shit card, until I realized how much I was ambushing my opponents with a Flashy card that was debuffing my opponent's creatures to make them more manageable. When your opponent gets greedy with a Cobra throw out a Duelist, shrink it and block. Bye-bye Cobra on turn 3. So typically in the early game if I have one I keep the mana open for a Duelist for that first attack. If you catch one in the late game they can still be relevant to bail out an overextended Rankle or Zareth, or save one of your other Rogues from the graveyard in a chump block that allows you a healthier retaliation in the future, all while still triggering Enforcer and milling 2 cards itself. Glasspool Mimic
was another card I wasn't seeing in any mirror matches either, and starting thinking it might have been a bad choice too until I started running Nighthawk Scavenger. Like I said before, there were so many games I was just losing because I couldn't protect my life total and do the roguey-thing. When I got Shocked by a mono-red player at the end of my pre-combat main phase and died one attack away from victory I decided I needed life gain in here somewhere. Nighthawk ended up making the list because I needed that sweet-sweet life. Life problem solved. Next problem was the mana issue. I wasn't drawing enough lands, or I wasn't drawing the right lands. Both problems that lost me too many games. So the Mimic was a happy compromise between lands and potentially putting my opponent on an even more aggressive clock. Copy a Nighthawk and gain a ton of life each turn. Copy a Soaring Thought-Thief or a Thieves' Guild Enforcer and you can legitimately start milling your opponent to death and win that way. Or, in a pinch, you get another Island for that Brazen Borrower nonsesnse. Speaking of Borrower. What do you get when you bounce a Borrower with Zareth's ambush ability? Well another Brazen Borrower of course (and of course the Borrower to go with it)! You could just as easily bounce a Mimic if you decided you needed a Thought-Thief or if you copied an Enforcer early game to apply pressure and needed the card back to copy a Scavenger.
The last two cards in here are Mind Drain and Agadeem's Awakening
. Mind Drain is pretty self-explanatory. Originally this deck was meant to be a control deck. The Mind Drains have been in here since the first iteration of that Dimir Rogue deck of mine (this is probably my 10th revision of this deck or so). I was running those along with counters, removal, and about 20 rogues to try and mill my opponent out or slam face until they died. It didn't work out well. Flash rogues didn't work that great either. The rogues most all have low toughness which makes them easy to kill. Most of the control element was thrown out piece by painstaking piece. What kept happening was that my mana was odd on turn 4 which prevented me from casting Rankle on curve which would have been most devastating had it happened. Also, I was losing rogues to decks with a lot of removal. Awakening was the compromise between better, more consistent mana and an ability that gave you late game value. Originally I had 4 in there but found myself drawing too many in the early game and getting back an Enforcer or a Duelist while flooding out.
So there is the deck, I hope you have fun playing it! Any suggestions/comments are welcome.
