Hello there! I go by the battlenet ID aReNGee, and while I'm not currently a legend player, I am consistently rank 1-5. A few weeks ago I started playing Oil Rogue, and was surprised at the depth and complexity of the deck. As a powerful and cheap deck, it could be an excellent choice for newer players, but many shy away from the deck due to its difficulty and unusual playstyle. Therefore, I decided to try to write a simple primer to teach newer players how to play this fun and explosive deck.

Decklist: This post provides several excellent decklists from top players, as well as tech options to help you tweak the deck. For comparison, the list I'm playing is provided below.

aReNGee's Oil Rogue

Overview: Oil Rogue is played as a board control deck with a combo finish. Similar to Druid decks running Force of Nature Savage Roar(s), Oil Rogue wants to remove enemy minions from the board, draw lots of cards, and finish their opponent in a single big turn. However, unlike a Druid deck, Oil Rogue can often win without using its combo, and its role is not set - in some matchups, rather than sitting back and controlling the board, you play the aggressor, curving out minions to pressure your opponent.

Combos: The core combo of the deck revolves around its titular card, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil. The standard combo to close out the game is: any minion Oil Blade Fury. With a minion in play, a combo'd Tinker's Oil adds 6 power to your attack, with Blade Fury being cast after your attack to deal at least an additional 4 damage. The single Southsea Deckhand means that you don't even require a minion on the board to finish off your opponent. Southsea Oil Blade Fury does 13 damage for 7 mana (9 if you include the hero power price).

Preperation: Preperation, while not strictly a combo card, can be a tricky card to use effectively. It is most commonly played to reduce the unwieldy 7 mana Sprint down to a manageable 4 mana, allowing you to actually use the cards you draw the turn you play them, or to reduce the cost of Tinker's Oil when comboing off. It is advised to play Preperation before Sprint rather than saving it to reduce a spell you may draw, because the mana saved will always be at least equal to the discount on your next spell, and you may wish to play a minion instead of a spell, or multiple low cost spells. That being said, Preperation is by no means married to either of those two cards, and can also be used for tempo plays such as casting a minion a removal spell in the same turn.

Board Control: Against most decks, and all aggro decks, your main goal is simple: survive. Prioritize clearing the board and preserving your life total - Oil Rogue decks play few, if any, healing cards. Don't worry about closing out the game, your opponent should run out of gas before you do, at which time you'll be able to finish them off. You have plenty of removal options, between Backstab, SI:7 Agent, Eviscerate, etc, as well as board clear in Fan of Knives (very effective with spell power) and Blade Fury. While Blade Fury is often your finisher, it can also be an excellent tempo play when used to clear out multiple minions, as a 4 power weapon Blade Fury is effectively a better Flamestrike, since it hits your opponent too.

Sap is a card that should be used carefully. Unless you're winning the game that turn, Sap should never be used on a 1-3 cost minion. It's simply too cheap for your opponent to replay that minion for the play to be mana efficient. While its core use is bouncing taunts out of the way of your minions, Sap is also great for destroying enemy's tempo by bouncing their 5 cost creature. Great targets for a midgame sap include cards like Sylvanas, Savannah Highmane, and Cairne Bloodhoof. It can often be gamebreaking, as your opponent just spent their entire turn playing that minion, and you undid their work with a 2 mana spell. I generally don't sap anything below a 5 drop and I strongly suggest you do not sap battlecry minions (as they get value from replaying it) with the sole exception of Dr. Boom, as the deck can have some trouble dealing with him and he's very expensive.

Matchups in which you take the Board Control role: Midrange Hunter, Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Mech Shaman, Midrange Paladin, Aggro Paladin.

Aggression: In most control matchups, you will be the one putting pressure on your opponent. Minions go up in value over spells, you will want to play them when possible (playing around the relevent board sweeper of course). Don't be afraid to play SI:7 Agent or Earthen Ring Farseer (if you play him) without getting value out of their battlecrys - the 3/3 body is valuable enough in the early stages. Against controlling opponents, with time they will play minions you can't easily kill and overwhelm you, so you want to put pressure on early and force them to deal with your threats. You should be able to keep up the pressure with your card draw, but beware of going for your combo too early when you don't have lethal. If you empty your hand against a control opponent but do not kill them, you can easily lose the game. The deck has some reach, but has a hard time doing more than 5 or 6 damage to close out the game, and control decks often have plenty of healing cards. Always count your damage!

Matchups in which you take the Aggro role: Control Warrior, Control Priest, Freeze Mage, Handlock, Demonlock.

Special Note: Druid Druid is kind of a strange matchup in which you take both an aggressive and a board control role. You want to kill them before they can use their combo to kill you, so you play out your minions aggressively, but you also want to preserve your life total and remove their minions. Every minion you leave alive is another 6 or 8 points of damage after a Savage Roar, so you have to prioritize clearing out their minions, especially their Shades of Naxxramas. Those minions must be killed at all costs, as your only means to do so is an early spell powered Fan of Knives or Blade Fury. Use Sap early if they Innervate out a minion to set them back quite a bit, but try to avoid bouncing Cenarius or the Ancient of Lore.

That's all for today! I hope reading this primer has given you a much better idea of what's going on when Oil Rogue is being played, be it by you or against you!