That could be interesting, but that 10 mana card with a conditional battlecry would need to win the game in the same was as Rin can.

That is true, but the effect and the statline on this card does mean it will rarely survive to the next turn, especially is this is played in conjunction with Aluneth. As it is right now, you only tend to play Aluneth when you’re low on cards in hand. Spitting out cheap Elementals doesn’t tend to be difficult to make sure you don’t burn too many cards.

If this Spiteful elemental Mage deck leans more towards midrange rather than tempo, it wouldn’t play Aluneth anyway.

It seems like this plus Book of Specters can become a 4 mana draw 6 combo or 8 mana draw six with Aluneth.
The 2/2 stats does mean this will probably end up dying rather easily, but the 2 cost does mean it can be comboed with the draw power Mage has.

A minion based Mage deck will have similar issues as a spell based Hunter deck did, but it is easier to envision a minion based Elemental Mage than the current spell hunter decks were.
Perhaps a Spiteful Summoner Elemental deck with Pyroblasts, Book of Specters, Flamestrikes and will emerge with this being a draw engine to compliment Aluneth if the deck plays it, but this is definitely a good card.

I was not aware of that. Thank you, but that only removes one bad card per class.

With the subtly of a rail cannon maybe. Thief Rogue can also never become a high tier deck without their win condition turning into a very much below average card.

Pointing out a new archetype may be unsuccessful due to the history of the class it exists in is different than saying new cards added to a failed archetype will probably not make that archetype playable.

Granted, it was noted during the card reveals for K&C by at least some people Spell Hunter could be a thing in the future with further support. Even then, for every surprisingly good new archetype like Spell Hunter, Secret Paladin, and Silence Priest, there is at least as many unsurprisingly bad new archetypes like Freeze Shaman, Totem Shaman, Deathrattle Rogue, and True Control Hunter. It should be noted all three of those decks run an alternate win condition in the form of some of the strongest cards the class has access to. Spell Hunter uses the Barnes-Y’Shaarj combo to sneak out early game wins, Secret Paladin had the incredible early game package Paladin had during the Grand Tournament format to support the powerplay that was Mysterious Challenger, and Silence Priest won about as often off the value of Lyra the Sunshard as it did with the Divine Spirit-inner Fire combos.

Thief or Burgle Rogue belongs to the group of archetypes like Discard Warlock, Murloc Shaman, Beast Druid, Taunt Warrior, Divine Shield Paladin, and technically Secret Mage. All of these archetypes are basically pet projects of designers within HS R&D and they have repeatedly created seemingly powerful support to try to push them into relevance. Of those seven archetypes over the course of the history of the game, only Secret Mage and Taunt Warrior have seen great amounts of success with the former’s success being the only one that has crossed over between multiple formats.

Thief Rogue can work. This is a pretty obvious attempt at finally getting the square beg through the round hole as Cataclysm was for Discard Warlock. If it does work, it will feel very forced, and if it ever gets to high tier status, it could see mirror matches often enough to make the win condition of your deck into the worst card in your deck often enough to make the deck no longer feel worth playing over Miracle Rogue.

Worst as in least playable or worst as in worst designed?

I can agree that this will likely end up being in the bottom tier of cards from this set due to its cost, but I cannot agree this is a terribly designed effect to have on a card.

I realized that shortly after I submitted the comment. Thank you.

It’s at least the closest logical fallacy I can think of, and it still is somesort of fallacy since it doesn’t address the argument itself.

Current Tempo Rogue decks are only playing one “real” three drop, Tar Creeper, but a competent three cost card isn’t really what the deck is lacking at the moment.
There are other early game minions like Vicious Fledgling could easily use right now, but don’t generally and the only thing this has over Fledgling is that it replaces itself in the hand. It can see play, but I just doubt it will in competitive decks.

Team 5 at Blizzard would want it to end like Yogg’s does since that would keep card interactions consistent, and while this is more “reliable”, it front loads the unreliability with the initial random card generation and could force you to make plays with bad cards in order to get the most value out of Tess’ Battlecry.

This will only end up being a meme deck unless the random class card generation shifts towards discovering those class cards like Hallucination does.

The cards this works with have never proven to be able to build a good enough deck to extend past niche play.
If Hallucination and Sprint aren’t currently seeing play in Miracle Rogue, why would higher cost greater variance versions of those cards see play instead?
Why would a Marin the Fox suddenly start being good because of this?
Why would Tess Greymane be an auto include in Rogue as a whole when you need to build a deck around her to make her decent.

This is still probably the best Thief Rogue card to come into existence and your N’Zoth-Yogg-Sarron fusion analysis is spot on, but it’s just not going to work out because Thief Rogue has never proven to be a good archetype in spite of the dozen or so support cards it has received over time. This will end up being Rogue’s equivalent to Cataclysm; the best card in the class’ worst archetype.

Not really. Face Collector could add only neutral minions or class legendary minions that aren’t really worth playing a second time like Clutchmother Zavas, Dragoncaller Alanna, or Moorabi.

Even then, you likely spent six or nine mana throwing out 2/2s in the hope of winning a lottery that will rarely land in your favor.

I did forget about that for a second, but given how the card has almost disappeared from standard play even in Miracle Rogue as soon as Knights of the Frozen Throne was released, one could potentially confuse it for card that has been moved to Wild.

One example of somewhat foggy wording in a sentence included to be a primer as to why this card and the archetype is belongs to will not see any noteworthy play in any format outside of maybe some weird Tavern Brawl does not invalidate any arguments I made on the matter. I am quite aware Unearthed Raptor became a Wild about this time last year.

Your argument as it stands is an Ad Hominem fallacy.

Why would this be better for ANY Rogue deck than SI:7, VanCleef, Mimic Pod or any of the other three cost cards I mentioned?

Why would adding a random cards to your hand be better than drawing them as Miricle Rogues do about as well as a deck possibly can?

How can you be so sure Thief Rogue, an archetype that has been receiving support since the Grand Tournament and is about to lose some of the most worthwhile support it has to the rotation, will finally break the glass ceiling even into playablilty with two mediocre to bad and one good support card?

Why do you think Face Collector adding more random cards to your hand would be worth playing in mirror matches over those same three drops or just good legendary minions?

This Thief Rogue archetype has existed in rogue for a very long time, and has never produced anything more notable than a pair of one drops that happened to work exceedingly well with pre-nerf Patches and Auctioneer.

While Lilian Voss can easily fuel Tess Greymane, would it be worth giving some of the best spells in the game to get spells that can can vary in quality from Fireball, Call to Arms, and Physic Scream to Paladin Secrets, awkward tribal synergies you can’t use, and Quests. Lilian Voss is also one of the worse archetypal cards regardless of it being in a good or bad archetype.

Plus, I think it would not be unreasonable to assume Tess will work in the same way as Yogg currently does, as in the effect ends if the minion kills itself. Voss only gives you spells and if the first spell you cast from it was a Fireball, there will always be a chance Tess will kill herself as soon as she comes into play.

This is okay, but okay isn’t going to make it playable when next to Fan of Knives, Edwin VanCleef, SI:7 Agent, Shadowblade, Sonya Shadowdance, Mimic Pod, Shadow Strike, Unearthed Raptor, and Shaku, the Collector with the latter three being restricted to Wild upon this card’s release. All of which are cards that will probably always see play in whatever format they were playable in, cards that allowed for impressive combo plays, or at least saw some play during their time.

This is a bigger Swashburgler, but half of what made Swachburgler playable was pre-nerf Patches with the other half being that it can be thrown out whenever you have a spare mana crystal. The Beast tag has little relevance in Rogue, the three drop slot is rather crowded as it currently is for Rogue, and Elven Minstrel is a better draw card even when ignoring how a random class is worth less than a minion in your deck.

It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong about it. It is likely just above the average power curve for a three cost card as it does replace itself in the hand and it’s stats are average, but its just not good enough and belongs to a poorly preforming archetype whose only noteworthy cards are one drops that saw play only because they were easy to insert into miracle rogue.

This would be the sort of endgame card that a Thief Rogue would need to be successful seeing as it is a sort of N’thoth and Yogg fusion.

It is unfortunate though most of the good theft cards (Swashburgler, Hallucination, Ethereal Conjurer on paper) will be leaving standard or have already left standard. Even with those though, the concept of stealing cards is just too random to be consistent in any way. Plus, playing against another rogue negates any benefits the theft cards would normally give you as the cards taken from the opponent’s class are not from a different class.

Almost by definition, a Thief Rogue can only ever be a niche deck. If it were ever more popular, there would be no point in playing it seeing as a thief rogue would be severely hampered more often than not against other rogue archetypes.