You sir have WON this thread!! :thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
Seriously though, a rogue deck is a deck that can handle the metagame. It may not work that well ag'st lower tier decks, but it should do very well ag'st the main deck(s).
Keith
Your Definition of "Rogue"
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You sir have WON this thread!! :thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
Seriously though, a rogue deck is a deck that can handle the metagame. It may not work that well ag'st lower tier decks, but it should do very well ag'st the main deck(s).
Keith
Kayle
Active Member
Making a rogue deck is loads of fun. It's just incredibly hard, as Baby Mario said.
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Victory Bell
Member
Baby Mario won this thread.
A rogue deck is not played to be "original". A red face paint is played because its builder feels it is the best play in the current metagame. Not to be confused with a "Noob's rogue", binder trash typically thought to be good by the builder.
A rogue deck is not played to be "original". A red face paint is played because its builder feels it is the best play in the current metagame. Not to be confused with a "Noob's rogue", binder trash typically thought to be good by the builder.
baby mario
Front Page Article Editor<br><a href="http://pokeg
The problem is that there is a lot of snobbery about rogue decks.
Loads of people like to call themselves rogue players cos they think it makes them better (more original) than meta players (who are all just netdeckers anyway, according to them).
Anyone can build a rubbish rogue. There are very, very few good rogue players.
Loads of people like to call themselves rogue players cos they think it makes them better (more original) than meta players (who are all just netdeckers anyway, according to them).
Anyone can build a rubbish rogue. There are very, very few good rogue players.
waynegg
CotD Editor<br>Forum Moderator
I play rogue. That's pretty much all I've played since the beginning of the TCG. The hard part of going with rogue is finding those overlooked cards and other cards that combo with them. The most challenging part of playing this way is your deck is in a constant state of flux and you have to know it well enough to predict what needs to be changed for the next tournament.
Rogue decks generally don't have the longevity of meta decks. A good rogue player can play any decent meta deck and do extremely well with it. Last year after Glistomb had been written off (since someone foolishly posted the list and strategy before it ever saw its first tournament) I picked it up and went 15-3 in two consecutive CC's finishing 2nd in both. I found it to be extremely boring and went back to rogues. It's more of a personal challenge and for me at least more rewarding even when the deck doesn't quite work out.
And baby mario:
You're much better at it than you give yourself credit for. Your insight on the couple of decks we have been working on since May/June have proven invaluable.
Rogue decks generally don't have the longevity of meta decks. A good rogue player can play any decent meta deck and do extremely well with it. Last year after Glistomb had been written off (since someone foolishly posted the list and strategy before it ever saw its first tournament) I picked it up and went 15-3 in two consecutive CC's finishing 2nd in both. I found it to be extremely boring and went back to rogues. It's more of a personal challenge and for me at least more rewarding even when the deck doesn't quite work out.
And baby mario:
You're much better at it than you give yourself credit for. Your insight on the couple of decks we have been working on since May/June have proven invaluable.
prodigal_fanboy
New Member
Simple, you're not in the 25%. There are good "rogues". Gechamp was rogue during '09 States, and the Rolls did well with it (iirc). Eric Craig I believe had fairly good success with Palkia/Dialga/Luxray/Gallade at Nationals that year. Sablelock was "rogue" during '10 States before blowing up as more and more details and lists were leaked.
Sometimes rogue decks work. I'm fairly certain you're Jimmy Ballard, and you have a reputation for making them work exceptionally well. For every one of you, there's the kid who is 1-4 because he went rogue and played Dustox.
Rogue Archetype
Moderator <br> Contest Host
Yep. ShopCCNC IS JimmyBallard. He's brilliant and deserves all of the hype he's been given over the years.
Jimmy builds rogues that have a since of humor. I think that's what drives him. Seriously - if you're really intense and you draw into Jimmy Ballard, you may end up cursing under your breath, picking up your cards (forgetting dice and stadium) and just walk away STEAMIN'. His combos are just SILLY-SICK and they make for some hilarious 'bad beat' stories. He ACTUALLY played aggro Electorde SW at 2010 U.S. Nats. (yes. nothing but Electrode "KABOOM" as MAIN ATTACKER).
He walks up to me in round 2 trying to contain laughter and says "Hey Rogue, I just beat MACHAMP this round." (remember, he's playing Electrode SW (Kamikazee and WEAK to fighting))
ROFL !!! AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHA
That's the stuff you build for right there. (OMG that's STILL so funny... LOLz)
The thing with that example is, he went into it to have fun AND competitive. He didn't intend to win the whole thing, but he would definately hand you an "L" if you didn't bring it.
Even though his deck didn't truly counter the meta, Jimmy built a SOLID deck that made sense; the combos had synergy, it consistently set up, and it X-0'd anything that wasn't top tier. Is that a counter-counter deck? (LOL!)
Yeah. I'd love to see Jimmy back into his old form, but I'm not certain he has the kind of time to committ to this game (he runs his own store).
Dennis Hawk
New Member
IMO, Rogue is a surprise deck in order to counter general aspects or highly played decks in the metagame.
The balance of rogue vs. meta is interesting. Metagame shifts are not only caused by new sets coming in and old ones rotating, but with the rogue playing community with superb deck building quality and ability to detect and define the states of current metagame. Rogue is, in the cases where the cardpool isn't changing, the birth phase of the deck. Not to be confused with plain bad decks that didn't exist before. The things are dead from the start.
The loop goes: Rogue -> Archetype -> Old archetype (the type of deck which has been established, but cannot compete with the current archetypes due to meta shifts). I personally think that this is a loop. A deck which has been an old archetype CAN go back to being rogue and start it's way towards the archetype again. This just means that the deck should have gone completely under the radar, as in not taken serious part of the competition anymore.
An important part of rogue is also the surprise factor. This should be noted when looping old archetypes back to rogue phase - if your opponent knows the whole deck you're playing card-by-card, you'll lose 10% in the matchup. It's like when Plox gained it's Healers - something unpredicted, causing the deck to do better countering the fast, medium-damage decks by increasing longevity of the powerlock. The deck was played by 4 people team in Finnish 2009 nats, winning all 3 age groups.
I don't think you need to use the cards no one has ever even glimpsed before in order to make a rogue deck. In fact, it's usually important to use the proven cards or engines for some extent. Still, you should be able to forget everything when starting to build a rogue deck - no fixed lines, no staples (I don't mean that your deck should not contain staple cards when it's finished - just that every card would have to earn it's place in the deck in question, not just because it's played in every other deck means that it should automatically be included in 4s). No limits. This makes a rogue building an extensive process. And to think that rogues have to be rebuilt for every tournament. Try going 3 tournaments, say week away from each other, in the row with the same exact rogue list and win - first is easy, second is hard and third is somewhere near impossible - at least, if you win the third one, you'll no longer be holding a rogue deck in your hands as it should be recognized as a part of metagame already due to being something but a rogue deck - a well built deck that is showing potential to be the next shift of the metagame.
Of course, there are a lot of bottom table rogues. There can be plenty of reasons - the consistency is off, the meta-prediction wasn't accurate enough, or the concept of rogue is unclear. With the concept, I mean that rogues are aimed to counter the currently played decks. Rogue isn't random binder card.dec. Rogue isn't tier3.dec. Rogue isn't something that can be built without certain mindset and knowledge about the meta.
The balance of rogue vs. meta is interesting. Metagame shifts are not only caused by new sets coming in and old ones rotating, but with the rogue playing community with superb deck building quality and ability to detect and define the states of current metagame. Rogue is, in the cases where the cardpool isn't changing, the birth phase of the deck. Not to be confused with plain bad decks that didn't exist before. The things are dead from the start.
The loop goes: Rogue -> Archetype -> Old archetype (the type of deck which has been established, but cannot compete with the current archetypes due to meta shifts). I personally think that this is a loop. A deck which has been an old archetype CAN go back to being rogue and start it's way towards the archetype again. This just means that the deck should have gone completely under the radar, as in not taken serious part of the competition anymore.
An important part of rogue is also the surprise factor. This should be noted when looping old archetypes back to rogue phase - if your opponent knows the whole deck you're playing card-by-card, you'll lose 10% in the matchup. It's like when Plox gained it's Healers - something unpredicted, causing the deck to do better countering the fast, medium-damage decks by increasing longevity of the powerlock. The deck was played by 4 people team in Finnish 2009 nats, winning all 3 age groups.
I don't think you need to use the cards no one has ever even glimpsed before in order to make a rogue deck. In fact, it's usually important to use the proven cards or engines for some extent. Still, you should be able to forget everything when starting to build a rogue deck - no fixed lines, no staples (I don't mean that your deck should not contain staple cards when it's finished - just that every card would have to earn it's place in the deck in question, not just because it's played in every other deck means that it should automatically be included in 4s). No limits. This makes a rogue building an extensive process. And to think that rogues have to be rebuilt for every tournament. Try going 3 tournaments, say week away from each other, in the row with the same exact rogue list and win - first is easy, second is hard and third is somewhere near impossible - at least, if you win the third one, you'll no longer be holding a rogue deck in your hands as it should be recognized as a part of metagame already due to being something but a rogue deck - a well built deck that is showing potential to be the next shift of the metagame.
Of course, there are a lot of bottom table rogues. There can be plenty of reasons - the consistency is off, the meta-prediction wasn't accurate enough, or the concept of rogue is unclear. With the concept, I mean that rogues are aimed to counter the currently played decks. Rogue isn't random binder card.dec. Rogue isn't tier3.dec. Rogue isn't something that can be built without certain mindset and knowledge about the meta.
Muk Man
New Member
Muk Man... Super Stantler Greates rogue deck/player ever.
A Rogue Deck is an actual COMPETITIVE deck.
Its not the cards, but more the strategy that makes the deck rogue.
Example the worlds winning "Raybees" would be a rogue deck.
Even though there were beedrill decks, and luxray decks, his deck worked different than all the other decks. Rogue
A Rogue Deck is an actual COMPETITIVE deck.
Its not the cards, but more the strategy that makes the deck rogue.
Example the worlds winning "Raybees" would be a rogue deck.
Even though there were beedrill decks, and luxray decks, his deck worked different than all the other decks. Rogue
Otaku
Active Member
I like that people want to define this, but so far, I can't say anyone has really hit it. Sadly I can't define it myself: I've wasted 30 minutes trying to compose such a post. I'll know it when I see it, but I haven't seen it.
...
Perhaps that is the definition itself? While many good "starts" to the definition are in this thread, many good quantifiers, almost all have exceptions. The chief exception is probably winning: does an archetype that performs poorly at a tournament stop being an archetype? Wouldn't you assume it was some netdecker who didn't know how to run it that caused it to lose, or if it was a great player that he just had an off day or bad match-ups? How different does a deck have to be from what is already considered "established" to be rogue? Can a deck that uses an alternative Stage 1 line (as an example) that might make the list just six cards different be considered a completely new rogue deck, or is it just a rogue build of the same deck? If it is four or less cards, wouldn't it be classified as a TecH line?
I do disagree with the notion that the deck really has to be unknown. Sometimes a player "goes rogue" and plays a "rogue" deck and its an established archetype that just hasn't succeeded for several tournaments (or a similar time frame). Maybe a few cards changed or maybe it is realizing a different strategy (with more or less the same cards) needed to be employed, but if it wasn't expected I'd still label that rogue!
So for the record, my official answer is "You'll know it when you see it!"
...
Perhaps that is the definition itself? While many good "starts" to the definition are in this thread, many good quantifiers, almost all have exceptions. The chief exception is probably winning: does an archetype that performs poorly at a tournament stop being an archetype? Wouldn't you assume it was some netdecker who didn't know how to run it that caused it to lose, or if it was a great player that he just had an off day or bad match-ups? How different does a deck have to be from what is already considered "established" to be rogue? Can a deck that uses an alternative Stage 1 line (as an example) that might make the list just six cards different be considered a completely new rogue deck, or is it just a rogue build of the same deck? If it is four or less cards, wouldn't it be classified as a TecH line?
I do disagree with the notion that the deck really has to be unknown. Sometimes a player "goes rogue" and plays a "rogue" deck and its an established archetype that just hasn't succeeded for several tournaments (or a similar time frame). Maybe a few cards changed or maybe it is realizing a different strategy (with more or less the same cards) needed to be employed, but if it wasn't expected I'd still label that rogue!
So for the record, my official answer is "You'll know it when you see it!"
Kayle
Active Member
Muk Man nailed it. The cards are not what's important: what's important is the strategy. All you had to do to make Raybees was to take a normal Beedrill deck, add in what, 2-1 Luxray and a couple Turns? Boom, instant rogue.
Rainbowgym
Active Member
My personal view on rogue
When every opponent has to pick up certain cards from my deck to read what it's doing and find out during play they interact with "known" cards.
When every opponent has to pick up certain cards from my deck to read what it's doing and find out during play they interact with "known" cards.
Skull Hatter
New Member
hmm...my definition of rogue...
Bad
Bad
Scipio
New Member
After PT, Gigas fell into obscurity. Fast forward a couple of sets and suddenly the NEW Gigas - focussing on Drag Off, Mespirit Lock and a few other new tricks becomes a great Luxchomp counter. Is that new Gigas not rogue initially?
Though I suppose you mean unaltered lists from when they were archetypes, right? Cuz in that case, yeah. But if someone manages to make Dusknoir work in a new way again, then it could be rogue again IMO...for as long as it takes.
Otaku
Active Member
Where as I don't require it be new: for me rogue is unexpected. So if a "classic archetype" that dominated the format during the first sets release but quickly fell out of favor after a quick follow up promo or the next set "nerfed" it with a counter... but by Worlds the metagame has so shifted that running the counter is no longer a given... I'd consider that a "rogue" deck again if someone tried playing it and especially if it ended up working.
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