The Comprehensive TITANS Preview

 

From the Scrapheap

Sparkbots are cute, but we’re not sure why they’re so expensive to generate. When looking at their abilities, they’re not necessarily better than the Worms generated by Awakening Tremors, or the Piranhas generated by Schooling. And yet, they cost twice as much mana to produce.

This makes From the Scrapheap very awkward to play in Mech Rogue. If you’re piloting an aggressive mech deck and play this on turn 2, you’re falling behind and not developing mechs on the board to magnetize on your critical turn 3. Mech Rogue doesn’t want to play Preparation.

From the Scrapheap is a synergistic card with Mimiron, but you can’t mass discount them either. There’s no Galvanizer type of effect available to Rogue that can help you execute an earlier swing turn. The Sparkbots can be powerful when you already have mechs on the board, but they’re quite useless for an empty board. We don’t think this card would be too good at 1 mana, which makes the conservative cost disappointing.

Score: 2

Coppertail Snoop

Snoop exemplifies the likely traits of Mech Rogue, an archetype that’s going to be highly reliant on magnetizing. Snoop is powerful when you’re able to magnetize it on curve. It’s a 4/3 buff for 3 mana, which can put a lot of early pressure on the opponent, while giving you a coin if you get to attack with it immediately. Early mana advantages could be significant, helping you accelerate your development further.

The problem is what happens when your opponent makes sure to clear your board in the first few turns? Snoop becomes a terrible minion to drop by itself. It has no immediate impact and terrible stats for a 3-drop, becoming a very easy target for further trades or removal.

This is a card that’s only going to be played in one specific archetype and it’s not good enough to carry it.

Score: 1

SP-3Y3-D3R

Another 3-mana magnetic Mech for Rogue. Spider is not as polarizing of a card compared to Snoop. It’s not as strong in the best situations, but not as useless in unfavorable scenarios. It can act as both a magnetic buff and a standalone play.

When utilized as a buff, you have two options. You can attack with the buffed minion and lose stealth, making Spider a simple 3/4 buff for 3 mana. Alternatively, you can attack with a minion first, magnetize it to give it stealth, and make it easier for you to land more buffs on it in the next turn. However, this does mean you don’t benefit from immediate damage.

If the board is empty, you can play Spider by its stealthy self, giving you a landing target for other magnetic mechs in the following turn. We do have to ask one question though, does any of this sound like promising constructed-level plays?

Score: 1

Gear Shift

Gear Shift is a very interesting card. In normal situations, it’s equivalent to a 1-mana cycle, a neutral exchange in which you pay one card and shuffle two more to draw three. However, it can be leveraged to give you card advantage if your hand is depleted. If your hand is empty, Gear Shift is just going to draw you three cards without a shuffle effect occurring. Fast paced decks that vomit their hand quickly can utilize Gear Shift in a similar way to how aggressive decks used Voracious Reader back in Scholomance Academy.

There are potential benefits to slower decks too. Cards that end up on the left side of your hand are more likely to be ones you haven’t been able to use, so they should be weaker in theory than cards you’re about to draw in a specific matchup or scenario. You can think of Gear Shift as a mini-Finley type of effect, where you decide your hand isn’t in a great situation and you need to churn through better options.

We’re not sure how many Rogue decks will exist that can maximize Gear Shift’s benefits in the upcoming format. It’s a card that can become very powerful with some synergies, such as Secret Passage, but these synergies don’t really stand out for us. Furthermore, Rogue’s aggressive strategies are not close to being viable and don’t get other support in this set, which could lead to Gear Shift not finding an immediate home.

Score: 2

Kaja’mite Creation

A 2 mana 3/2 with a discover effect is usually a good enough card to see competitive play. The narrowed cost range means the spell you discover is guaranteed to be playable on turn 3 and should work nicely with Preparation. The issue is that we’re not sure what this card is doing in this set. It feels like it randomly found itself here.

Thief Rogue is currently an unplayable archetype from a competitive standpoint and the rest of the set doesn’t inspire confidence that it can become viable. There are no other “Thief Rogue” cards in the Rogue set. If the archetype does become competitive, it’s certainly not going to be thanks to the sole carry job of this 2-drop.

There’s little chance that Miracle or Secret Rogue will play this, as there’s no inherent synergy between Kaja’mite Creation and what they’re trying to do. It’s just a good discover minion for an archetype that’s struggling to compete.

Score: 2

Pit Stop

We have a very similar issue with this card to what we do with From the Scrapheap. Pit Stop’s mana cost seems overly conservative and cautious. We do not want to spend our turn 2 casting Pit Stop in Mech Rogue. It does not give us card advantage. It doesn’t help us develop the board. The buff is very modest and compares poorly to similar effects of the past. It’s not a good card in an aggressive deck.

Pit Stop could be useful as a soft tutor, in a deck that only runs a curated package of high impact mechs that you’re guaranteed to find with it. That could be a boost in that strategy’s overall consistency and seems like the only reasonable utilization of the card in its current cost. If it were a 1-mana spell that gave a +1/+1 buff to a mech, we’d be far more interested. At 2 mana, this card is mediocre and is going to feel mediocre.

Score: 2

Tar Slick

Would this card be too good if it read “Enemy minions…”? This theoretically buffed Tar Slick already exists in a neutral form that’s available to all classes: Enchanter. Last time we checked that card didn’t break the game.

Admittedly, this card is cheaper and provides 1 guaranteed damage to a minion, which is essentially 2 damage since the effect applies before the damage. It’s an interesting effect to introduce in Rogue, since it encourages the class to find ways to incorporate AOE into its toolkit. We investigated this possibility. We don’t want to. This card just doesn’t seem worth the trouble.

Score: 1

Lab Constructor

A baseline Lab Constructor summons two 3/2’s to the board that threaten to keep spawning if not dealt with. They work like Malignant Horror but are not limited by a resource. A forged Lab Constructor gains the magnetic ability, which means you can attach it to another mech and have it multiply. That makes Lab Constructor much more intimidating, since the bigger the mech you copy, the more difficult it is to remove and the more game ending subsequent spawns could be.

It’s worth noting that if you have another magnetic mech in hand, you can attach it to a baseline Lab Constructor without the need to forge it, which could be something you choose to do later in the game. There’s a lot of merit to planning because you could save the cost required to forge in some circumstances.

Overall, Lab Constructor has the highest potential to be a serious win condition in Mech Rogue. The problem is its weakness in its baseline form and the requirement to forge it. You rarely want to drop its baseline form on curve, as you’re paying 4 mana to develop a couple of 3/2’s. That’s much worse than playing a Saronite Chain Gang. This means that you need to forge it, which means you need to skip a critical turn in the early game or wait until turn 6 to forge and play it in the same turn. As we’ve said earlier, an aggressive Mech Rogue that’s reliant on magnetizing cannot afford to pass turns in the early game.

We could forge Lab Constructor on 2, play Spider on 3 and then magnetize it. If that’s our best-case scenario, then Mech Rogue is in serious trouble. Constructor is likely better off being a turn 6 play, as a follow up to a Wargear or Zilliax. And what happens if you’re not ahead at that point? You’ve lost the game and Lab Constructor rarely helps you come back.

Score: 1

Mimiron, the Mastermind

Mimiron is probably the most exciting card in the Rogue set because of his unique gadgets that provide varied utility in different situations. These upgraded spare parts from 2014 resemble Find the Imposter gizmos. They can be quite powerful and allow you to swing the game in a flurry.

Mimiron generates a gadget whenever you play a mech. That includes mechs that magnetize, so if you play Mimiron and attach Sparkbots to it, it’s going to produce gadgets. This highly encourages Mech Rogue to run a low curve of cheap mechs that can offer Mimiron the consistent juice it needs to execute a strong turn.

Its baseline stats are quite solid, so even though it’s tempting to wait to a later stage of the game, Mimiron can drop to the board on turn 3 and demand removal much like Hawkstrider Rancher. As Rancher has proven before, 5 health on turn 3 can be quite awkward to deal with and not every deck will have a great answer, which means you can really snowball the game on turn 4.

In general, Mimiron’s best fit is in Mech Rogue. The high density of mechs means it will have the support required to go off. But Mimiron could end up in Miracle Rogue running a small mech package and Pit Stop to tutor it. It does require the archetype to cut some cards that are considered core to the deck.

We’re sus on mechs in general, but we’ll give Mimiron a more generous score. This is the card that could help carry some mech cards into competitive viability, because none of the other stuff looks great.

Score: 3

V-07-TR-0N Prime

This TITAN is our call for the worst TITAN in the set and the only one we can see being completely passed over. V-07-TR-0N Prime is a massive disappointment.

The most critical issue with it is that it’s the only TITAN that requires the presence of another friendly minion on board to optimally use its abilities. A V-07-TR-0N into an empty board is a terrible card, while every other TITAN has the option to trigger a strong proactive ability in that situation.

Attach the Cannons is likely to be its most common ability, as it’s powerful if you have a minion in play and the opponent’s board is empty. You can deal 10 damage through the 2-attack buff on the minion and 8 damage from the shots, making it a scuffed Marrow Manipulator in terms of impact.

Full Power allows you to draw two cards, which makes it a scuffed Overseer Frigadara. There’s no AOE or any type of immediate impact on the board besides the small buff on the targeted minion. There’s also no tutoring power. Perhaps a better comparison would be Cathedral of Atonement.

Maximize Defense just gives both the TITAN and its friendly minion a 3-health buff that makes them non-targetable to spells or hero powers. This makes V-07-TR-0N harder to kill, so it’s more likely to survive and use its other abilities in subsequent turns, but it also… kinda does nothing.

There’s just no way to sugarcoat it. This card is less useful than Crabatoa. It’s worse than Crabatoa if you’re not significantly ahead on the board. It’s also the only TITAN that the opponent might afford to keep alive without losing the game. It’s just not a big threat.

In fact, this card may not even be seen in Mech Rogue because it’s too slow, while magnetizing it is a waste because it can’t attack. We’re not sure how one of the TITANS is so much worse compared to all the others, but that seems like Rogue’s most notable trait this expansion.

Score: 2

Final Thoughts

TITANS Set Rank: 11^th

Overall Power Ranking:  11^th

This set could be an unmitigated disaster for the Rogue class. After a completely forgettable Festival set that barely made any impact, comes a TITANS set that’s all about… Mechs in Rogue….

Let’s go over the power level concerns by comparing Mech Rogue to its fellow tribal decks in Paladin and Mage. Rogue is the only one that doesn’t have cost reductions built into its strategy. Rogue is the only one that doesn’t have any synergistic card draw effects, beyond one (bad) TITAN ability. Rogue is the one most reliant on getting ahead and staying ahead, as it is entirely based on magnetizing to win. It doesn’t have a way to outpace its opponents. It doesn’t have a way to swing back the game consistently. It doesn’t have a board-based finisher. It doesn’t have off-board damage. It’s required to pass turns to execute its most powerful plays on paper.

What does it do? Magnetize to win. What happens if the opponent clears the board? It can’t do anything powerful. This deck is guaranteed to be extremely one-dimensional.

Taking into consideration that it’s already hard enough for mech decks to see play when they’re competitive, we have little hope that Mech Rogue is going to be a popular deck. Even if it ends up at a good enough win rate. Even if we’re totally wrong about its capabilities. It’s very possible that this deck is going to be strong against passive strategies that don’t contest its early development and let it snowball. It’s also possible that it’s going to do well at lower ranks of ladder, where players are less likely to exploit its predictability. But even if it does enjoy some success, how many players are going to care enough to play it?

The only card that puts some color into this otherwise mundane archetype might be Mimiron. Mimiron is a powerful card that provides some value, some unpredictability, some swing potential, to a mech package. It might be good enough to be included in a Miracle Rogue deck with a mechanical spin. This idea will be tested, because there sure isn’t much else to test.

That’s the only notable avenue for further development in the class. Miracle Rogue is otherwise in danger of going stale and is about to encounter a much more powerful late game from other classes. Thief Rogue certainly got nothing that would suggest it’s about to step out of its current 40%-win rate. Secret Rogue is not interested in any card from this set, so it can’t really get any better. Aggressive Rogues are dead in the water and Gear Shift alone won’t bring them back.

Is this it? The expansion in which Rogue becomes the undisputed worst class in the game?