Even players that I've played against who are seemingly bad will be able to predict a secret I toss out. How do people become so good at sniffing out the secret? Is it based on the situation? Or is there just a process to rule out every possible secret.
Both situation and deck. Most people have the top 20 decks more or less memorized.. so we know freeze mage is armor or block.. etc..
Situation is really not that hard to read either. Hunters dont cast freeze trap and leave up an existing 1 drop to test for it. When we don't know, testing for secrets is a thing. You notice when people play around your mirror image but you might not notice when they play around it when it's not there. They do.
If you are a freeze mage it's always going to be ice block or barrier.
If you are a tempo mage it could be anything and you just go with your best guess.
Most hunter secrets are played for specific situations so it's easy to read them, like getting your opponents monsters down to 2 life and then playing explosive, or playing freeze against one big minion.
Because 90%+ of all decks you play against are netdecks that you already know by memory. The only secrets that are hard to read are ones created from babbling book or ethereal conjurer and even then they are fairly easy to test against.
Mage secrets are generally pretty easy. Freeze mages, as others have said, really only run 2 secrtes. Tempo mages generally run mirror image if they run a secret at all.
To test for hunter secrets the best thing is to already have a minion on the field. If you attack and nothing triggers it's either snipe or cat trick. If you have a board of minions it's probably explosive trap. if you have nothing on the field then it's probably snipe (if you're playing mage it can easily be cat trick too). Honestly with secret hunter being obnoxiously common thanks to Cloaked Huntress you might want to run an Eater of Secrets.
I don't see a lot of palidin secrets out there really, but I don't play wild.
At higher ranks everyone plays netdecks so you know:
Freeze mage: Ice block or ice barrier
Hunter: Freeze, cat trick, snipe and sometimes explosive or snakes
Tempo mage: Most likely mirror, rarely counterspell or effigy. Just always note if it was in his deck or created by e.g. babbling book
From there on you can judge the situation: He's not gonna play a freeze if you have e.g. swashburglar on board, and he's not gonna play ice barrier if you have lethal +8 damage on board (unless he's faking it)
And from there on you try to test for secrets as properly as you can.
Even players that I've played against who are seemingly bad will be able to predict a secret I toss out. How do people become so good at sniffing out the secret? Is it based on the situation? Or is there just a process to rule out every possible secret.
Proud owner of Yung Swaggin'hawk
Both situation and deck. Most people have the top 20 decks more or less memorized.. so we know freeze mage is armor or block.. etc..
Situation is really not that hard to read either. Hunters dont cast freeze trap and leave up an existing 1 drop to test for it. When we don't know, testing for secrets is a thing. You notice when people play around your mirror image but you might not notice when they play around it when it's not there. They do.
You have to be more specific.
If you are a freeze mage it's always going to be ice block or barrier.
If you are a tempo mage it could be anything and you just go with your best guess.
Most hunter secrets are played for specific situations so it's easy to read them, like getting your opponents monsters down to 2 life and then playing explosive, or playing freeze against one big minion.
Because 90%+ of all decks you play against are netdecks that you already know by memory. The only secrets that are hard to read are ones created from babbling book or ethereal conjurer and even then they are fairly easy to test against.
Mage secrets are generally pretty easy. Freeze mages, as others have said, really only run 2 secrtes. Tempo mages generally run mirror image if they run a secret at all.
To test for hunter secrets the best thing is to already have a minion on the field. If you attack and nothing triggers it's either snipe or cat trick. If you have a board of minions it's probably explosive trap. if you have nothing on the field then it's probably snipe (if you're playing mage it can easily be cat trick too). Honestly with secret hunter being obnoxiously common thanks to Cloaked Huntress you might want to run an Eater of Secrets.
I don't see a lot of palidin secrets out there really, but I don't play wild.
mage secret from spell and minion very hard to predict. total rng . may screw you.
hunter one easy. if you no idea just use deck tracker
At higher ranks everyone plays netdecks so you know:
Freeze mage: Ice block or ice barrier
Hunter: Freeze, cat trick, snipe and sometimes explosive or snakes
Tempo mage: Most likely mirror, rarely counterspell or effigy. Just always note if it was in his deck or created by e.g. babbling book
From there on you can judge the situation: He's not gonna play a freeze if you have e.g. swashburglar on board, and he's not gonna play ice barrier if you have lethal +8 damage on board (unless he's faking it)
And from there on you try to test for secrets as properly as you can.
Fuck cubelock
And if it's Paladin Secrets..... well, the general rule is "All of them".