Ever since I started playing Hearthstone (which was around the launch), I was always extremely annoyed with the secrets mechanic. But, for the most part of my hearthstone adventure, secrets were an annoying gimmick that was mostly possible to play around. The only class that had any sort of counterplay for them was freaking hunter of all the other possibilities, but it was still manageable. Hell, Blizz even printed (a pretty horrible) answer in the form of Eater of secrets, but still, it wasn't impossible to try and guess what your opponent is playing and make your own plays as good as possible. Then, Un'Goro happened. We got primordial glyph, which is almost as dumb as Jade Idol, and some insane secrets synergy in mage decks (free 5/5's anyone?). Now, mages are playing some bullshit stuff that cannot be played around simply because you don't know what it is, and they do it FOR 1 MANA. But still, gullible me thought that there would be at least SOME form of an answer for it printed in KoFT. I was, of course, very wrong in thinking like that. This is actually quite funny, because Team 5 always tries to discourage any sort of non-interactive decks. So tell me, why do you think Blizzard still hasn't done anything at all about the glyph or secrets as a whole?
Secret mage is one of my favorite decks to play against as it requires skill on my side and lots of thinking to play around. It is completely counterable when you don't allow it to get any value. It better than playing against jade imo
Secret mage is one of my favorite decks to play against as it requires skill on my side and lots of thinking to play around. It is completely counterable when you don't allow it to get any value. It better than playing against jade imo
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Flare, Kezan and Eater are all perfectly good secret counters imo. If there was a secret counter everyone could run without drawback they would, and then no one would play secrets
I don't think I agree with you. The only thing good about playing against Jade druid is that you know EXACTLY what you're playing against. Secrets mage is, well, nothing more than playing a guessing game since you have to play around cards that aren't normally played, but if they are created by some card creating engine such as babbling book or primordial glyph, are still pretty good. The fact that they can draw their Ice Block on turn 2 90% of the time because of arcanologist is also pretty bullshit in my opinion.
I don't get why everyone is so quick to call all sorts of mechanics and game plays non-interactive. Secrets are the opposite of non-interactive, it's a secret, meaning it's for the opponent to play around so that's interactive in my books. What's not interactive is freeze mage and quest mage, where they don't care about what you are doing and it's almost single player mode. The drop Alex and there's nothing you can do about it, or they complete their quest and infinite damage you. Secrets are NOT non-interactive (besides ice block). If they play counterspell it's up to you to decide whether to play innervate or nourish. If they play mirror entity it's up to you to play jade spirit or primordial Drake. That's called INTERACTIVE!!
What would you like for them to print? A 4-mana 10/10 battlecry: destroy all enemy secrets and deal 10 damage to the enemy hero for each one destroyed? Secrets are irritating af, but tech cards are worse. They basically read "If your opponent is playing a certain deck, win." How is that interactive?
Ok, I believe I haven't made my post entirely clear; I understand secrets as a whole and it isn't really problematic, since you could for the most part of hearthstones' life cycle, guess what your opponent is playing. However, ever since secrets can be acquired without playing them in your deck, I think we deserve some sort of direct answer that doesn't suck completely in other match ups, because actual counter play is NOT possible, if you can't guess what your opponent is playing simply by looking at their deck archetype. So yes, this is also sort of an anti-rng thread.
I don't get why everyone is so quick to call all sorts of mechanics and game plays non-interactive. Secrets are the opposite of non-interactive, it's a secret, meaning it's for the opponent to play around so that's interactive in my books. What's not interactive is freeze mage and quest mage, where they don't care about what you are doing and it's almost single player mode. The drop Alex and there's nothing you can do about it, or they complete their quest and infinite damage you. Secrets are NOT non-interactive (besides ice block). If they play counterspell it's up to you to decide whether to play innervate or nourish. If they play mirror entity it's up to you to play jade spirit or primordial Drake. That's called INTERACTIVE!!
Yeah when secret mages flood the board on turn 6 with free secrets and mana wyrms and crystal runners, it's up to you whether you play Dragonfire Potion into Counterspell, or just roll over and die anyway.
For the record I agree that it's still more interactive than stalling variants of mage.
Ok, I believe I haven't made my post entirely clear; I understand secrets as a whole and it isn't really problematic, since you could for the most part of hearthstones' life cycle, guess what your opponent is playing. However, ever since secrets can be acquired without playing them in your deck, I think we deserve some sort of direct answer that doesn't suck completely in other match ups, because actual counter play is NOT possible, if you can't guess what your opponent is playing simply by looking at their deck archetype. So yes, this is also sort of an anti-rng thread.
Ok, I believe I haven't made my post entirely clear; I understand secrets as a whole and it isn't really problematic, since you could for the most part of hearthstones' life cycle, guess what your opponent is playing. However, ever since secrets can be acquired without playing them in your deck, I think we deserve some sort of direct answer that doesn't suck completely in other match ups, because actual counter play is NOT possible, if you can't guess what your opponent is playing simply by looking at their deck archetype. So yes, this is also sort of an anti-rng thread.
Your not supposed to just know everything your opponent has as far as the game goes that's just a consequence of net decking your supposed to react to your opponent
I don't get why everyone is so quick to call all sorts of mechanics and game plays non-interactive. Secrets are the opposite of non-interactive, it's a secret, meaning it's for the opponent to play around so that's interactive in my books. What's not interactive is freeze mage and quest mage, where they don't care about what you are doing and it's almost single player mode. The drop Alex and there's nothing you can do about it, or they complete their quest and infinite damage you. Secrets are NOT non-interactive (besides ice block). If they play counterspell it's up to you to decide whether to play innervate or nourish. If they play mirror entity it's up to you to play jade spirit or primordial Drake. That's called INTERACTIVE!!
Yeah when secret mages flood the board on turn 6 with free secrets and mana wyrms and crystal runners, it's up to you whether you play Dragonfire Potion into Counterspell, or just roll over and die anyway.
For the record I agree that it's still more interactive than stalling variants of mage.
Or just save a coin, a pws or some other shitty spell, and cast that first, priest should have no problem whatsoever playing around that situation.
Playing well vs secrets is like solving a puzzle with your brain. It is actually not that complicated...
Ok, I believe I haven't made my post entirely clear; I understand secrets as a whole and it isn't really problematic, since you could for the most part of hearthstones' life cycle, guess what your opponent is playing. However, ever since secrets can be acquired without playing them in your deck, I think we deserve some sort of direct answer that doesn't suck completely in other match ups, because actual counter play is NOT possible, if you can't guess what your opponent is playing simply by looking at their deck archetype. So yes, this is also sort of an anti-rng thread.
Your not supposed to just know everything your opponent has as far as the game goes that's just a consequence of net decking your supposed to react to your opponent
Plus, if you specifically discover a secret from Glyph, you can often guess which one it is based on its timing and whether or not an opponent would expect it to be useful in the match-up.
I don't get why everyone is so quick to call all sorts of mechanics and game plays non-interactive. Secrets are the opposite of non-interactive, it's a secret, meaning it's for the opponent to play around so that's interactive in my books. What's not interactive is freeze mage and quest mage, where they don't care about what you are doing and it's almost single player mode. The drop Alex and there's nothing you can do about it, or they complete their quest and infinite damage you. Secrets are NOT non-interactive (besides ice block). If they play counterspell it's up to you to decide whether to play innervate or nourish. If they play mirror entity it's up to you to play jade spirit or primordial Drake. That's called INTERACTIVE!!
Yeah when secret mages flood the board on turn 6 with free secrets and mana wyrms and crystal runners, it's up to you whether you play Dragonfire Potion into Counterspell, or just roll over and die anyway.
For the record I agree that it's still more interactive than stalling variants of mage.
Or just save a coin, a pws or some other shitty spell, and cast that first, priest should have no problem whatsoever playing around that situation.
Playing well vs secrets is like solving a puzzle with your brain. It is actually not that complicated...
That sounds so bloody smug. Playing around secrets is nothing like solving a puzzle except in the most dire circumstances, where it's more like diffusing a bomb. One major difference is that a puzzle always has an answer. Meanwhile certain secrets can cause you to waste an entire turn doing nothing productive and allowing your opponent to snowball.
Mage secrets are very redundant, you can counter most of them just by playing your lowest cost minion or spell, and it doesn't even require any special tech cards (or much thought).
And of course there's always eater of secrets if you are really triggered by secret mage. this has already been reiterated about a thousand times, but if there existed a secret counter with no tempo loss then basically everyone would run it and secrets would be unplayable.
Should be remembered too that by themselves, secrets are pretty sub par. Other than Ice Block (does not fit what a secret normally is for) and Frost Barrier, (is that really a secret?) almost none are played without a synergy card. They just aren't good enough.
Paladin only uses them because of hydrologist, Mage has targeted draws with arcanoligist (secret Mage not T1 anyways and see above on ice block and barrier) and of course random spell generators.
Hunter would probably run explosive trap, freezing trap and cat trick and that's it. No other secrets in the game really worth a deck slot by itself.
I feel anything secre let's in general are too weak. Outside Ice Block and maybe a few Hunter secrets you would basically never play them in decks not focussing on them.
Random secrets are the best place for randomness in the game. They make you think and make decisions about what you are willing to risk triggering.
Now, Ice Block on its own I would like to see go to the HOF. While it sets up some plays and does feature some decision making, I don't think it adds too much to games and is among my top picks to rotate.
As for tech cards, if a tech card means you automatically win the matchup it is broken (unless it was a matchup you already dominated). It might go from a 20% chance to win to an 80% in that matchup but that is far from guaranteed. Something as extreme as skulking Geist doesn't assure you victory against Jade Druid and (assuming you don't already hold a big advantage) hitting a couple secrets with an eater of secrets doesn't guarantee you take down a secret Mage (especially with their ability to generate replacements), just make it far more likely.
Ever since I started playing Hearthstone (which was around the launch), I was always extremely annoyed with the secrets mechanic. But, for the most part of my hearthstone adventure, secrets were an annoying gimmick that was mostly possible to play around. The only class that had any sort of counterplay for them was freaking hunter of all the other possibilities, but it was still manageable. Hell, Blizz even printed (a pretty horrible) answer in the form of Eater of secrets, but still, it wasn't impossible to try and guess what your opponent is playing and make your own plays as good as possible. Then, Un'Goro happened. We got primordial glyph, which is almost as dumb as Jade Idol, and some insane secrets synergy in mage decks (free 5/5's anyone?). Now, mages are playing some bullshit stuff that cannot be played around simply because you don't know what it is, and they do it FOR 1 MANA. But still, gullible me thought that there would be at least SOME form of an answer for it printed in KoFT. I was, of course, very wrong in thinking like that. This is actually quite funny, because Team 5 always tries to discourage any sort of non-interactive decks. So tell me, why do you think Blizzard still hasn't done anything at all about the glyph or secrets as a whole?
Secret mage is one of my favorite decks to play against as it requires skill on my side and lots of thinking to play around. It is completely counterable when you don't allow it to get any value. It better than playing against jade imo
I don't think I agree with you. The only thing good about playing against Jade druid is that you know EXACTLY what you're playing against. Secrets mage is, well, nothing more than playing a guessing game since you have to play around cards that aren't normally played, but if they are created by some card creating engine such as babbling book or primordial glyph, are still pretty good. The fact that they can draw their Ice Block on turn 2 90% of the time because of arcanologist is also pretty bullshit in my opinion.
It's because secrets ARE supposed to be the counter play itself. They are the only mechanic that lets you interact with your opponent's turn.
And I personally would not consider Ice block a secret in the true spirit of the card compared to say counter spell, Frost trap and noble sacrifice
I don't get why everyone is so quick to call all sorts of mechanics and game plays non-interactive. Secrets are the opposite of non-interactive, it's a secret, meaning it's for the opponent to play around so that's interactive in my books. What's not interactive is freeze mage and quest mage, where they don't care about what you are doing and it's almost single player mode. The drop Alex and there's nothing you can do about it, or they complete their quest and infinite damage you. Secrets are NOT non-interactive (besides ice block). If they play counterspell it's up to you to decide whether to play innervate or nourish. If they play mirror entity it's up to you to play jade spirit or primordial Drake. That's called INTERACTIVE!!
What would you like for them to print? A 4-mana 10/10 battlecry: destroy all enemy secrets and deal 10 damage to the enemy hero for each one destroyed? Secrets are irritating af, but tech cards are worse. They basically read "If your opponent is playing a certain deck, win." How is that interactive?
Ok, I believe I haven't made my post entirely clear; I understand secrets as a whole and it isn't really problematic, since you could for the most part of hearthstones' life cycle, guess what your opponent is playing. However, ever since secrets can be acquired without playing them in your deck, I think we deserve some sort of direct answer that doesn't suck completely in other match ups, because actual counter play is NOT possible, if you can't guess what your opponent is playing simply by looking at their deck archetype. So yes, this is also sort of an anti-rng thread.
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really, no good answer?
Mage secrets are very redundant, you can counter most of them just by playing your lowest cost minion or spell, and it doesn't even require any special tech cards (or much thought).
And of course there's always eater of secrets if you are really triggered by secret mage. this has already been reiterated about a thousand times, but if there existed a secret counter with no tempo loss then basically everyone would run it and secrets would be unplayable.
But we have eater of secrets
-a rank 25 player
Fuck cubelock
Should be remembered too that by themselves, secrets are pretty sub par. Other than Ice Block (does not fit what a secret normally is for) and Frost Barrier, (is that really a secret?) almost none are played without a synergy card. They just aren't good enough.
Paladin only uses them because of hydrologist, Mage has targeted draws with arcanoligist (secret Mage not T1 anyways and see above on ice block and barrier) and of course random spell generators.
Hunter would probably run explosive trap, freezing trap and cat trick and that's it. No other secrets in the game really worth a deck slot by itself.
I feel anything secre let's in general are too weak. Outside Ice Block and maybe a few Hunter secrets you would basically never play them in decks not focussing on them.
Random secrets are the best place for randomness in the game. They make you think and make decisions about what you are willing to risk triggering.
Now, Ice Block on its own I would like to see go to the HOF. While it sets up some plays and does feature some decision making, I don't think it adds too much to games and is among my top picks to rotate.
As for tech cards, if a tech card means you automatically win the matchup it is broken (unless it was a matchup you already dominated). It might go from a 20% chance to win to an 80% in that matchup but that is far from guaranteed. Something as extreme as skulking Geist doesn't assure you victory against Jade Druid and (assuming you don't already hold a big advantage) hitting a couple secrets with an eater of secrets doesn't guarantee you take down a secret Mage (especially with their ability to generate replacements), just make it far more likely.
Yeah there is a good secret answer, it is 42
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