Double Dip

This is basically just every burgle card and every lackey card. I think this has more potential than it looks like from the outset because Raiding Party gives us a lot of consistency, Spectral Cutlass gives us much needed sustain to reach the late game, and our win condition is Heistbaron Togwaggle, not just a big weapon, meaning the deck is less weak to weapon removal.

Gameplan

We use Raiding Party to draw our tempo burgle tools and keep control of the game until turn 7 where we slam Heistbaron Togwaggle and Preparation out a fantastic treasure.

It’s important to note that, in contrast with Academic Espionage builds, we only have 7 weapon additional weapon charges in the deck. The deck is also missing Sap and Vanish.  As such, Spectral Cutlass is more for sustain/board control than slamming your opponent in the face until they die. This can still happen, of course, but it’s not the primary gameplan. 

Card choices

• Preparation – generally core in a Raiding Party deck, but looks weaker than usual due to the absence of Sap and Eviscerate. However, the deck generates a lot of spells through Hench-Clan Burglar and Heistbaron Togwaggle that make for more happy targets.
• Pilfer – never feels great to run this, but it’s a weapon charge, and it can curve into Underbelly Fence.
• Underbelly Fence – when active, she’s insane on 2 and generally good. With so many activators, she should be live most of the time.
• EVIL Cable Rat – I’m not sure how good this is, but it feels like we need more lackeys to make sure we have one for Heistbaron Togwaggle.
• Cutthroat Buccaneer – 5 pirates is the way to go with double Raiding Party, so we need two more than just the obvious. With Valeera the Hollow rotating, I think we need weapon buff more than we need a free minion in Dread Corsair.
• Vendetta – only even talking about this because it’s a new card. I think this is going to become a staple in decks that run Raiding Party + Hench-Clan Burglar to the point where it’s as core as Backstab. Basically always live in this deck, which means it’s basically always a Preparation + Eviscerate that only costs one card. Hench-Clan Burglar + Vendetta is going to be a notorious turn 4 Rogue play as long as it’s in standard.

Other options:

• Dread Corsair – I mentioned I prefer Cutthroat Buccaneer, but this is an option
• Edwin VanCleef – this deck cares about tempo and runs Preparation, so Edwin VanCleef is a natural fit. It represents another win condition, which might not be necessary, but is rarely a bad idea when it fits. If we have more lackeys than we need, I would love to cut an EVIL Cable Rat for it, but that doesn’t feel likely. Otherwise the only other cut that really makes any sense is SI:7 Agent, and I’d rather not.
• Fan of Knives – less potent with Odd Paladin leaving the game, but still a reasonable Rogue board control tool.
• Walk the Plank – doesn’t feel super necessary to me with x2 Vendetta, but this can let you remove bigger targets with ease.
• Sap – this deck doesn’t always make the strong boards that best take advantage of this tempo, but it’s great for stalling to your Heistbaron Togwaggle, or hitting your opponent in the head with a big Spectral Cutlass.
• Spirit of the Shark – literally every minion in this deck has a combo or battlecry effect that benefits significantly from being doubled. Even the generated lackeys!
• Hench-Clan Thug – suspiciously absent. Very good Rogue card as ever. Decks only have 30 card slots.
• Cursed Castaway – I’ve only played this in Captain Hooktusk decks because it’s a big pirate and there aren’t a lot of those. Can find you EVIL Miscreants for Heistbaron Togwaggle so I guess that’s something. Wouldn’t recommend, but it’s there.

It’s possible to run a lighter weapon package with only 1 Raiding Party and possibly even only 1 Spectral Cutlass. If you do this, you might also choose to cut the Cutthroat Buccaneers. This frees up as many as 4 slots to experiment with other options. One possibility:

• -1 Raiding Party
• -1 Spectral Cutlass
• -2 Cutthroat Buccaneer
• +1 Spirit of the Shark
• +1 Edwin VanCleef
• +2 Hench-Clan Thug

This is interesting, and worth trying, but you lose the consistency that x2 Raiding Party brings.