Against Druid I want to keep my Hex for bigger targets. If I play the Shreader I'm giving him a two for one. He runs his Shreader into the Golem then hero power the 2/1 and I still have to run one of my cards in to kill it. So I like totem Spider.

FWIW, Billy did totem/spider. I think...
-Hex is the tempo play. You stay ahead of your opponent's board. It doesn't develop anything, but you still have 4 mana worth of creatures.
-Creeper/totem is the long-game, value play. You get a hero ability in while still spending your mana
-Shredder is the short-game, value play. You spend your mana while getting the heaviest minion out of your hand. (that you can on that turn)

the 4/3 contests his 4/3; if you dont hex, going face doesn't matter too much since with your hand and board it's not really a race situation. But if you sack your minions in, he's left with a 2 drop that is likely better than your 2/1 from golem.

however, if you do a play other than hex, it could make your follow-up turn smoother, as you always havethe option to hex/hero power.

I think I play shredder then go face out of fear of the 5 drop. Loatheb would be terrible. If he runs belcher, I'd be sad too.

Cute little spot that comes up frequently with Oil/miracle decks:



We have a few options. We can attack cogmaster with the plan of attacking twice, we can backstab pass, or we can hold backstab to combo with SI7 next turn. Alternatively, we can attack face with the plan of dagger/poison whatever comes out.

attack and keep backstab, ldo

yeah. >95% of the time a 2 drop mech is coming out that you can just backstab + SI then attack cog again

if we just pass we keepthe possibility of deadly poiaon into si 7 on turn 4 open though.

One of the secrets we know is Ice Block. The other we are 95% sure is Duplicate. We know he has a Doomsayer in hand (Duplicated).

This was a tough turn. 3 (semi) viable options, in no discernible order:

1. Armor up pass, take your licks and move on.
2. Brawl, take the 2/3 shot, and hope he has no freeze next turn (he's played 1 Blizzard and 1 Frost Nova so far).
3. Yolo Rag, either you snipe the Doomsayer, or proc the Ice Block.

What do 2p2?

Brawl seems like the best option by far to me, this is about the best usage you're going to find for it vs a freeze Mage.

You're a warrior vs a freeze Mage - the only way he's gonna win is if he plays alex and you have no way to deal with it for like 6 turns - which becomes possible if you play the rag. The upside of playing the rag isn't that great - him hitting face is meh b/c the Mage would still have 7 life and you have no other damage sources in hand.

The play made (Bobbo agreed with this, as he was sweating me) was:

Brawl, Alex won brawl. After discussion this seemed the most viable play.

definitely brawl, such a dead card in this match up.

Can I post one without a screenshot?

Mid Pally vs Shaman (that's all I know) first turn rank 5, I have the coin it passes to me I hold 2 Knife Juggler's 1 Shredder and Loatheb.

I guess your internal debate is holding the coin for a natural shredder on 3 or getting double 2 drop out?

-it's important to have a totem killer against a shaman
-if he rockbites on 2 mana, he's not making a totem, he takes damage, it's a slightly positive trade for you (1 for 1) and you can still deploy the other juggler
-you have 2 more draws to get a natural 3 drop
-if the juggler is NOT removed, getting dual jugglers out early is basically gg

so, coin the dude out.

yeah, idk wtf I was thinking. too much druid I think has made me over-value the coin and my curve looked awkward / don't have a ton of 3 drops plus I assumed it was mid-range shaman....which it was not. whirling dervish into powermace into double rockbiter = gg.

yeah, gg

are you coining juggler vs shaman always then? For example, if my hand was like 1 juggler, shredder, loatheb and some other higher cost thing, still coin it to stomp totems and get some board presence?

Probably not. Given you have a 2nd 2 drop, it makes it easy to go 2/2. As a general rule (with a few exceptions) it's wrong to coin a 2 when you don't have a follow-up play.

The times I'll coin a 2 without a follow-up is with a Creeper or so as a Shaman against a hunter who plays a leper gnome or w/e. Being passive there will cost a ton of damage, and totems are probably the "best" of the hero abilities to put up board presence.

Thoughts on best play here?

somehow i posted a response but it got lost. you should send everything to face, sets him to 3. no trade is inherently good there, yes you lose on the rag roulette 1 in 4 (he kamikazees slyvannas into the annoy, steals 1 of the remaining 4, gives him 4 rag targets - cat is a little worse for you bc he can trade into argus making it 1 in 3)

no matter what survives you have enough to kill him (champ or brew) even after an armor up. so, push face, you're a big favorite here, outside of a brawl or shieldblock shenanigans

Really, really tough spot. This isn't a puzzle as much as an advanced "improve your hs" moment!

Can't really find a better line than trade, hit face and drop geddon to clear. Could maybe run emp into a bomb before clearing instead but that uses a lot of resources just to put bgh instead of geddon on the board and I don't see the benefit of it really. What's the alternative line you're considering? I just can't see anything that's even close to as good.

I guess you could plan to execute the emp but that still puts a weaker board out. So spot seems to be is execute worth dealing 5 face damage to put bgh on board over geddon? I think both shield slams are worth more than 1 execute, could be wrong I guess. Still prefer the geddon line.

After some thought, I think thaurissian into boom, slime into sylvanas, attack face with weapon, geddon is the best play. You're losing both minions this turn 100%, but this way saves the most cards and face damage and keeps geddon at full health.

Is there any merit to the idea that we're in a slightly losing position right now and just taking the line where we give up both minions and lose nothing to the Sylvanas is keeping us in a losing position?

I'm not sure exactly the right line to take, but something like BGH destroys Boom, Hero Power, Shield Slam the Sylvanas, then he has a 2/3 chance of taking one of our **** minions. If he takes the Thaurissian, then hit it with slime and weapon.

hey zim, that's actually exactly what I thought, fwiw.

the line that has been suggested is prob the default best. i found this situation kinda fascinating because we technically have great answers - an execute for an injured slyvanas, a bgh for boom vs a deck that prob only runs 1 >7 attack minion, etc - but we cant play any of them due to whats on the board

the emperor isn't a typical minion either, if we can actually somehow preserve him, thats worth a lot.

a big part of me wanted to gamble on bghing the boom and then executing sylvanas. you take a 1 in 3 of outright losing the game, but vs the other branches you're liekly in better shape. (it doesn't even outright lose the game, since you can then whack it with weapon, although same could be said if it DOESN'T get stolen - boom bot rng could bone him anyway)

I honestly think that the gamble line is the best line. At this point, your core cards have had their cost reduced and the added utility of reducing the cost of Geddon, BGH, and top deck card aren't that great. Thaurissian has served his purpose. Each turn that he survives he has much decreased utility, especially when 3 of your cards are already at 0 and your next turn you'll have 8 crystals.

I think I start by playing BGH.

With that on the board, we have to use our hero power to utilize Shield Slam as that's our only way to gain armor.

So the board we have is:

Sylv - BB - BB (30)

------------------

Slime - Thau - BGH (24+2) - 4/1 with Deathrattle

and we still have 2 mana crystals but no hero power.

At this point I Shield Slam the Sylvanas.

So all 3 outcomes are equally likely. If Sylvanas takes the BGH or Slime, we can Shield Slam that, Face with weapon. If Sylvanas takes Thaurissian, we hit Thaurissian with weapon, it dies anyways, Boom bots still go boom.

Thaurissian has a decent chance to survive the Boom Bots on our side. So 66% of the time (just under in case Boom Bots run pure) we get a Thaurissian on our side, 26 health on enemy hero, his side of the board clear. 33% of the time, we get a cleared board on his side, and anywhere from 0-2 minions on our side depending on Boom Bots, and less health for our hero.


I think this is def a superior line to ending up with 15-21 health on our hero and Geddon on the board with nothing else.

I went for the double trade Geddon play and think it was the best play.

My thought process :
These are 2 of 3 biggest threats by a paladin so I don't think I'm behind if I clear the board at all.

A 5 hp Geddon on an empty board is a bitch to deal with as paladin (the only clean kill is with a bgh and I still have alex/dr.boom so I'm okay with that) and limits his options a lot. Geddon on an empty board with removal in your hand wins games.

I'm likely to lose one of my minions to the bombs

I have a high life total and would prefer the bombs to hit my face over any minions (trading hero hp for minion hp is pretty important as a warrior).

what made this spot interesting is like rob said this is likely the only bgh target in a paladin deck and execute on a sylvanas seems tempting too, I just like the geddon play a bit better.