I've been thinking about secrets- specifically, secrets that have opposite ways of playing around them. For example- Freezing Trap incentives attacking with your smallest minion, but Flame Trap kills small minions. If you guess wrong, then you get punished.
Here are my card ideas- love to hear your feedback.
#1- For Hunters. Freezing Trap is punish if they only have one minion, and the answer some times is to just pass. This secret punishes those who fail to take action.
#2- For Paladins. Getaway Kodo and Redemption are defeated by killing a small minion. This secret rewards you if they guess wrong and kill a recruit, or can help protect a weak/wide board.
#3- For Mages, the anti-spell secrets (Counterspell, Mana Bind) are countered by playing a small spell. This secret dares them to try a larger spell. This secret would also be brutal in the early game, basically locking out the coin or small spells.
#4- And, for those looking to play around Mirror Entity, what if the smaller they went; the bigger you got? Similar to the previous secret, this would be brutal in the early game and incentivize aggressive secret strategies.
the last one isn't bad, the first one probably won't see much play, the 2nd one is basically going to be overpowered since you just run it with get down and the 3rd one seems a bit unplayable unless you got it from primal or cabalist.
Like the inverted entity one you play secret mage, mulligan for it and lackey and when they turn 1 a 1-2 drop you get a 3-4 drop as well which is dynamic for a tempo swing(might be too good sometimes)
Coward's Curse: Just thinking in terms of the meta right now I don't think this card would see much play. Most hunters I've run across only run Eaglehorn Bow in their deck for the 3/2 weapon don't see too many secrets anymore. However for the card itself would it gain that stat permanently? Because that might be a little too strong only because while freezing trap makes your minion cost 2 more, if the minion gets sent to the hand again by something else it goes back to its original cost. Also playing certain minions from the hand again can actually benefit you whereas this would just straight up take a minion out of the game without any board clears or silences bringing it back. Maybe if it was can't attack next turn it would be interesting.
Blood of the Innocent: Seems like a more overpowered Avenge to me. Plus say you used Equality the turn before so everything you have has 1 health if they don't have a board clear to kill everything at once this could end up in many favorable trades for the paladin. In the current meta for paladin I could see this getting picked by Hydrologist or maybe even played by itself straight up all the time. Maybe if it was like the Steward of Darkshire and it gave your other 1-health minions divine shield it wouldn't be too bad but would still be a great combo with Equality.
Mana Reversal and Inverted Entity: I like the idea of these cards and as far as seeing play I could see Mana Reversal being put in as a one off maybe but Inverted Entity at best would give you a 4 drop (if I'm reading the cards correctly) which isn't terrible but I can't really see why a mage would play this when their turn 3s mainly consist of drawing cards or generating cards at the current moment. Mana Reversal would be great for control mage however because you are essentially cutting off your opponents next turn someone depending on what they play. Maybe if this was more of a Loatheb effect though since it is supposed to stop spells it could just increase the cost of spells for their next turn instead of the overload since that's a specific feature to Shaman.
Coward's Curse is probally REALLY bad since the requirement is to high and pay off is too low, the only time your opponent doesn't attack is when they don't have any minions on the board. And hunter just doesn't seem the right class for it either, i would've given it to Paladin.
Blood of the Innocent is sort of an Avenge but then basicly only for when a Silver Hand Recruit dies and the pay-off is much better, it wouldn't be quitte game breaking but deffinetly really powerful which Paladin is already enough. And having a 1 mana spell that gives all minions Divine Shield just doesn't seem right to me regardless of the requirement
Mana Reversal, i like the idea but Overload is a Shaman only mechanic. Would be balanced though and again, i really like the idea.
I like Inverted Entity but it's just way to powerful in the early game
I see what you're trying to do, which is to cover the possible weaknesses of secrets. But this is something that you inherently shouldn't do... the thing that makes secrets somewhat interactive is that you can actually play around them, but when you make cards like these with reverse triggers it makes it so that there's literally nothing you can do aside from guessing based on which card is more viable or more common to draft in arena, even if you have a hand full of cards to deal with it with.
From the thread title itself, it seems like you want to punish people for playing a certain way with regard to secrets, and from the triggers, it seems like you want to punish people for correctly playing around existing secrets. Why would you want to punish your opponent for doing the right thing? That's inherently unfair gameplay, and one of the reasons that Molten Giant got nerfed (and while I disagree with the extremity of the nerf, I think their reason was valid).
I think my point is that the 'correct playing' is becoming too obvious - I think it would be more fun if there was a 'risk/reward' calculation (similar to Dirty Rat). Currently, the only time secrets feel worth it is when they are almost unavoidable (Redemption with Tyrion), or spell-bender vs the current Paladin.
I'd like to see a Vizzini-esque moment when the player thinks "Well, you just played mulliganed your entire hand and played a secret on turn 2 with the coin. Are you kind of person who got Inverted Entity and are gloating that I can't play? Or did you get ice-block and you're hoping that I think you have Inverted Entity so I don't play anything for a couple of turns? Well, you know I'm not a fool, and only a fool would play ice block on turn two with the coin..."
Secrets like these would cause a lot more thought to go in to them but ultimately it would kind of come down to a guessing game. Honestly Blizzard has already done something similar to this with Mana Bind. Mana Bind is basically the exact opposite of Counterspell (Instead of cancelling the spell I'll let you play some big spell and then get it free of cost). If more people played Counterspell this could be seen as a problem but since its release people will generally guess it's Mana Bind and just give up the coin or something useless. So maybe they have plans for secrets like this in the future but maybe these just aren't the right effects they are looking for for them.
I've been thinking about secrets- specifically, secrets that have opposite ways of playing around them. For example- Freezing Trap incentives attacking with your smallest minion, but Flame Trap kills small minions. If you guess wrong, then you get punished.
Here are my card ideas- love to hear your feedback.
#1- For Hunters. Freezing Trap is punish if they only have one minion, and the answer some times is to just pass. This secret punishes those who fail to take action.
#2- For Paladins. Getaway Kodo and Redemption are defeated by killing a small minion. This secret rewards you if they guess wrong and kill a recruit, or can help protect a weak/wide board.
#3- For Mages, the anti-spell secrets (Counterspell, Mana Bind) are countered by playing a small spell. This secret dares them to try a larger spell. This secret would also be brutal in the early game, basically locking out the coin or small spells.
#4- And, for those looking to play around Mirror Entity, what if the smaller they went; the bigger you got? Similar to the previous secret, this would be brutal in the early game and incentivize aggressive secret strategies.
Ah if only the day would come when all the classes have secrets.
Coward's Curse: Just thinking in terms of the meta right now I don't think this card would see much play. Most hunters I've run across only run Eaglehorn Bow in their deck for the 3/2 weapon don't see too many secrets anymore. However for the card itself would it gain that stat permanently? Because that might be a little too strong only because while freezing trap makes your minion cost 2 more, if the minion gets sent to the hand again by something else it goes back to its original cost. Also playing certain minions from the hand again can actually benefit you whereas this would just straight up take a minion out of the game without any board clears or silences bringing it back. Maybe if it was can't attack next turn it would be interesting.
Blood of the Innocent: Seems like a more overpowered Avenge to me. Plus say you used Equality the turn before so everything you have has 1 health if they don't have a board clear to kill everything at once this could end up in many favorable trades for the paladin. In the current meta for paladin I could see this getting picked by Hydrologist or maybe even played by itself straight up all the time. Maybe if it was like the Steward of Darkshire and it gave your other 1-health minions divine shield it wouldn't be too bad but would still be a great combo with Equality.
Mana Reversal and Inverted Entity: I like the idea of these cards and as far as seeing play I could see Mana Reversal being put in as a one off maybe but Inverted Entity at best would give you a 4 drop (if I'm reading the cards correctly) which isn't terrible but I can't really see why a mage would play this when their turn 3s mainly consist of drawing cards or generating cards at the current moment. Mana Reversal would be great for control mage however because you are essentially cutting off your opponents next turn someone depending on what they play. Maybe if this was more of a Loatheb effect though since it is supposed to stop spells it could just increase the cost of spells for their next turn instead of the overload since that's a specific feature to Shaman.
Coward's Curse is probally REALLY bad since the requirement is to high and pay off is too low, the only time your opponent doesn't attack is when they don't have any minions on the board. And hunter just doesn't seem the right class for it either, i would've given it to Paladin.
Blood of the Innocent is sort of an Avenge but then basicly only for when a Silver Hand Recruit dies and the pay-off is much better, it wouldn't be quitte game breaking but deffinetly really powerful which Paladin is already enough. And having a 1 mana spell that gives all minions Divine Shield just doesn't seem right to me regardless of the requirement
Mana Reversal, i like the idea but Overload is a Shaman only mechanic. Would be balanced though and again, i really like the idea.
I like Inverted Entity but it's just way to powerful in the early game
I see what you're trying to do, which is to cover the possible weaknesses of secrets. But this is something that you inherently shouldn't do... the thing that makes secrets somewhat interactive is that you can actually play around them, but when you make cards like these with reverse triggers it makes it so that there's literally nothing you can do aside from guessing based on which card is more viable or more common to draft in arena, even if you have a hand full of cards to deal with it with.
From the thread title itself, it seems like you want to punish people for playing a certain way with regard to secrets, and from the triggers, it seems like you want to punish people for correctly playing around existing secrets. Why would you want to punish your opponent for doing the right thing? That's inherently unfair gameplay, and one of the reasons that Molten Giant got nerfed (and while I disagree with the extremity of the nerf, I think their reason was valid).
Thank you for your well-thought out reply.
I think my point is that the 'correct playing' is becoming too obvious - I think it would be more fun if there was a 'risk/reward' calculation (similar to Dirty Rat). Currently, the only time secrets feel worth it is when they are almost unavoidable (Redemption with Tyrion), or spell-bender vs the current Paladin.
I'd like to see a Vizzini-esque moment when the player thinks "Well, you just played mulliganed your entire hand and played a secret on turn 2 with the coin. Are you kind of person who got Inverted Entity and are gloating that I can't play? Or did you get ice-block and you're hoping that I think you have Inverted Entity so I don't play anything for a couple of turns? Well, you know I'm not a fool, and only a fool would play ice block on turn two with the coin..."
Secrets like these would cause a lot more thought to go in to them but ultimately it would kind of come down to a guessing game. Honestly Blizzard has already done something similar to this with Mana Bind. Mana Bind is basically the exact opposite of Counterspell (Instead of cancelling the spell I'll let you play some big spell and then get it free of cost). If more people played Counterspell this could be seen as a problem but since its release people will generally guess it's Mana Bind and just give up the coin or something useless. So maybe they have plans for secrets like this in the future but maybe these just aren't the right effects they are looking for for them.