I encountered this situation and am not sure if i made the right decision by NOT soul firing it. He then proceeded to turn 2 drop his 2nd undertaker and leper gnome. But I just don't feel soul firing an undertaker with a nice hand on turn 1 is a correct play. Although I may be wrong, because I'm still used to fighting zoo classic style as handlock going tap, tap, tap, hellfire and clear. Thoughts?
Soulfiring a card on turn one that you know 100% will become a danger to you in a bit is a completely viable play. I know this because I too, am a handlock player and have been faced with this situation many times, Hellfire is good but against an undertaker that's been blown past 3 health( or 4 if you have mortal coil in hand and the mana for it) is a bit difficult to deal with.
Far from a pro player here, so take that with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't do it most of the time, if ever.
You have to trust your deck. Either you go for giants/shadowflame, or you drop watchers/silences early to trade. A turn one Soufire endangers those two options.
A strenght of the deck is to stabilise with big taunted creatures at around ~10. It's fine to take damage at the start. But of course, sometimes 2x undertakers starts followed by a few deathrattle is unstoppable, but this is vtrue for all decks. You have to hope your opponent will overextend and allow you to wipe his board and that you will have the key cards to stabilise/delay.
Rank 2 handlock player here, so definitely not a pro but I do primarily play handlock. I believe in every scenario that's the incorrect play. Worst case scenario you can soulfire it next turn as there's no way for it to get above 4hp. As a handlock, you're going to be behind on board against zoo in the early game. The way you win isn't by trying to match their creatures with spot removal, because they can play more things quicker than you can remove them. You win by stabilizing behind a taunt wall in the mid-game. Soulfiring the undertaker actually works against this goal. Discarding a card from soulfire means your mountain giants come later and your twilights are weaker, not to mention you might discard something important. Another thing to keep in mind is that taking a certain amount of damage is totally fine when playing handlock, as if you get a taunted molten up it's typically gg. The toughest thing about handlock is learning to live on the edge a bit. Handlocks best turns happen at low life totals. GL, hope this helps!
As a zoo player myself I would probably be very happy if a handlock used a soulfire against my turn 1 drop no matter what that drop is. I would say that you should probably wait with soulfiring the undertaker until you KNOW you cant deal with with a shadowflame/hellfire or it simply grows to too big of a threat to keep around.
Remember that against a zoo, you WANT to be at lower HP so that you can get out taunted giants asap. The zoo has pretty much no way of getting past those taunts except trading unfavorably into them. So doing anything against a zoo's early minions is probably wrong until you see they actually start becoming a real threat (which usually happens to be around turn 4 when you should have hellfire ready! :P)
Turn 1 Undertaker is has 2 health, which means he would need the coin and 3 1-mana minions with deathrattle to have 5 health on turn 2. Let's be honest, if he gets that combo off he deserves the win. If not - let's assume not - then that same undertaker will still have 4 or less health on turn 2, and then you can soulfire. You also get the turn 2 benefit of deciding whether to tap before or after soulfire, depending on cards in hand. Furthermore, who cares about that extra 1-3 damage that undertaker hit you for? It'll just get giants out faster, and it still dies to soulfire turn 2 before it's some crazy 8/9.
Unless you have some truly ridiculous early hand like Soulfire Soulfire coin Siphon Soul Shadowflame where you don't care what card you lose and will probably be defeated anyway without some luck, there's very little reason to kill that undertaker before the next turn in this scenario.
Thx guys! Handlock vs zoo is actually quite interresting! I just played vs 3 zoos in a row, and went 1-2, but afterwards, there were always slight misplays deciding the outcome...like a zoo buffing the wrong minion allowing me to full-clear with hellfire+mortal coil. When to soulfire on both parts is one of the hardest decisions, thx for help.
I encountered this situation and am not sure if i made the right decision by NOT soul firing it. He then proceeded to turn 2 drop his 2nd undertaker and leper gnome. But I just don't feel soul firing an undertaker with a nice hand on turn 1 is a correct play. Although I may be wrong, because I'm still used to fighting zoo classic style as handlock going tap, tap, tap, hellfire and clear. Thoughts?
Soulfiring a card on turn one that you know 100% will become a danger to you in a bit is a completely viable play. I know this because I too, am a handlock player and have been faced with this situation many times, Hellfire is good but against an undertaker that's been blown past 3 health( or 4 if you have mortal coil in hand and the mana for it) is a bit difficult to deal with.
Far from a pro player here, so take that with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't do it most of the time, if ever.
You have to trust your deck. Either you go for giants/shadowflame, or you drop watchers/silences early to trade. A turn one Soufire endangers those two options.
A strenght of the deck is to stabilise with big taunted creatures at around ~10. It's fine to take damage at the start. But of course, sometimes 2x undertakers starts followed by a few deathrattle is unstoppable, but this is vtrue for all decks. You have to hope your opponent will overextend and allow you to wipe his board and that you will have the key cards to stabilise/delay.
Rank 2 handlock player here, so definitely not a pro but I do primarily play handlock. I believe in every scenario that's the incorrect play. Worst case scenario you can soulfire it next turn as there's no way for it to get above 4hp. As a handlock, you're going to be behind on board against zoo in the early game. The way you win isn't by trying to match their creatures with spot removal, because they can play more things quicker than you can remove them. You win by stabilizing behind a taunt wall in the mid-game. Soulfiring the undertaker actually works against this goal. Discarding a card from soulfire means your mountain giants come later and your twilights are weaker, not to mention you might discard something important. Another thing to keep in mind is that taking a certain amount of damage is totally fine when playing handlock, as if you get a taunted molten up it's typically gg. The toughest thing about handlock is learning to live on the edge a bit. Handlocks best turns happen at low life totals. GL, hope this helps!
As a zoo player myself I would probably be very happy if a handlock used a soulfire against my turn 1 drop no matter what that drop is.
I would say that you should probably wait with soulfiring the undertaker until you KNOW you cant deal with with a shadowflame/hellfire or it simply grows to too big of a threat to keep around.
Remember that against a zoo, you WANT to be at lower HP so that you can get out taunted giants asap.
The zoo has pretty much no way of getting past those taunts except trading unfavorably into them.
So doing anything against a zoo's early minions is probably wrong until you see they actually start becoming a real threat (which usually happens to be around turn 4 when you should have hellfire ready! :P)
Turn 1 Undertaker is has 2 health, which means he would need the coin and 3 1-mana minions with deathrattle to have 5 health on turn 2. Let's be honest, if he gets that combo off he deserves the win. If not - let's assume not - then that same undertaker will still have 4 or less health on turn 2, and then you can soulfire. You also get the turn 2 benefit of deciding whether to tap before or after soulfire, depending on cards in hand. Furthermore, who cares about that extra 1-3 damage that undertaker hit you for? It'll just get giants out faster, and it still dies to soulfire turn 2 before it's some crazy 8/9.
Unless you have some truly ridiculous early hand like Soulfire Soulfire coin Siphon Soul Shadowflame where you don't care what card you lose and will probably be defeated anyway without some luck, there's very little reason to kill that undertaker before the next turn in this scenario.
Was a top 100 handlock player, and I also agree it's the incorrect play in every scenario, for every reason above.
Thx guys! Handlock vs zoo is actually quite interresting! I just played vs 3 zoos in a row, and went 1-2, but afterwards, there were always slight misplays deciding the outcome...like a zoo buffing the wrong minion allowing me to full-clear with hellfire+mortal coil. When to soulfire on both parts is one of the hardest decisions, thx for help.
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