If you've been wanting to get into historic but are scared because of the steep cost of entry and/or have been enjoying rogues in standard but are tired of the meta revolving around ways to stop your game plan this deck may be for you. Or you might just want to play a powerful, interactive deck, this fits that bill too. If you already own the Standard rogues deck but have no cards outside of Standard, upgrading to this version is only 10 rares extra, all of which will be useful in a host of other decks!

This deck got me a 76% win-rate over 33 games on my climb through Diamond after I had spent some time learning it. Don't underestimate the power of 1 and 2-drops when your deck can protect them and stop your opponent getting ahead at the same time.

I loved playing rogues in standard but playing with taplands all the time and having somewhat conditional removal was often annoying for me. This Historic re-vamp solves both of those problems while adding more counterspells (Lofty Denial), and hand interaction with Thoughtseize and the discard effects of Oona's Blackguard, the latter of which can really punish slower decks.

Experience playing rogues in Standard is useful for piloting this deck but do be aware that it's play patterns are different and be prepared to re-learn somewhat, we're almost never trying to mill the opponent. This is basically an aggro deck, we have a lower curve than many versions of mono-red and run just 20 lands + 3 MDFC's. We want to get an evasive threat on the board as early as possible then play the game at instant speed completely reacting to what the opponent does. While Merfolk Windrobber is sometimes a cuttable card in the Standard deck, here it is important to powerup Lofty Denial as early as possible, as well as providing and alternate late game draw engine if you can get your Lurrus to stick. If you have an Oona's Blackguard in your opener you'll want to play it turn 2 most of the time but don't wait on it to get your 1-drops out.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is 60% of our nonland cards are playable at instant speed. Make the absolute most of this, only make plays when forced to or pushing for tempo at the end of the opponents turn. Having so many 1 and 2-drop flash/instant spells can make it very difficult for the opponent to work out what we have in hand which makes a huge difference to how they might play if they had that knowledge. Leverage this as much as possible.

Fatal Push is an incredible fit in this deck. As a Modern staple its obviously powerful but when our early game is often running on 3 lands, being able to kill something while still holding up a counter, or threat if they play nothing, makes for some incredible tempo. Further, if put on the defensive, we can block with a Windrobber, sac it to draw a card activating the Revolt clause and kill something big. This means we can take no damage from two creatures, trade up in terms of mana cost, and stay even on cards.

Try and attach a Curious Obsession's to the first flying creature that can attack with it. Even if it only lives one turn, it's replaced itself and can potentially be brought back later with Lurrus, of the Dream Den, as well as simply drawing another. The +1/+1 effect is very relevant for us as an aggro deck. When you have the option, put multiple Obsession's on different creatures to diversify your threats and keep drawing if the opponent finds single target removal.

A note on two potentially tough matchups that I came across fairly commonly in my games.

First, white enchantments (Voltron) with Lurrus. Kill any Srams or Spiritdancers as fast as possible, ideally they'll run out and we can run away with the game but this isn't all that common. Keep pushing damage as long as you can and take any 1 for 1 trades, buy and play your Lurrus as fast as you can they can't interact with it well. If they're lasting longer, try and hold back a thoughtseize for their Lurrus if you can, if you can stop him hitting the board you're probably favoured to win. If he does make it down take a backseat, your best chance is likely letting them mill themselves with the 8+ cards a turn that the two cards mentioned above can provide, holding back a surprise last second rogue for the last few cards where you can afford to.

Secondly, a very brief mention of the Rakdos aggro list. This list is very powerful and has a curve as low as ours. The main threat is Dreadhorde Arcanist. If he's allowed to attack and you have creatures on the board they're probably dying to some free removal, if they have two then the problems mulitply. It's a tough matchup but by holding your Drown in the Loch's and deathtouched Thieves' Guild Enforcers back to catch them out and keep pressing damage as fast as possible it is winnable.

There will be a host of other decks that give us a run for our money (e.g we don't deal with Goblins particularly well) but on the whole, having Flash on our creatures lets us keep pushing through damage and trading well against other fast decks while playing around boardwipes and simply going too fast for control to keep up with. Against midrange we have to eek out as much tempo as we can and close the game before their creatures overwhelm us.

Cheers for reading if you got this far! Hope you enjoy this deck as much as I have and do leave a comment if you give it a shot!