I just lost a game against quest mage in wild - he stalled the entire game and let me build my board, to the point where I had lethal on board with him having one secret up. I figured it was Ice Block, but with lethal on board and Zephrys the Great in hand, I assumed some sort of secret removal would be offered. But instead I got three damage spells, each of which added nothing to my turn - either I have lethal, or it's Block and more damage won't help.
Naturally, he killed me with the quest on the very next turn. But my question, besides whining about how unreliable Zephrys is at times, is if there is any way for me to secure the right options from discovery in a case like this?
Zephrys has no way of knowing and doesn't take into account what secret it could possibly be. He just pushed your lethal even further.
The thing you could've done was to use enough mana to be exactly at 2 mana after playing Zephrys to try to force a Flare offering or at 4 mana to try forcing SI:7 Infiltrator.
Blizz should have programmed Zephrys to always offer secret removal if you already have lethal on board and a secret is the only thing in the way. This has been the case for me, no idea why Zephrys missed lethal for you.
While there was no way in this particular instance for me to get to 2 or 4 mana, I believe it would be better if Zephrys was more logical in such instances anyway - if he offers me Flare, I win 100 % of the time with the information he has access to, as far as I know?
Zephrys should be able to see that the board has exact lethal and that there is a secret that stands in the way for that to happen.
Zephrys totally didn't see the secret for me despite that I had more than enough lethal damage, he gave me damage burst cards instead.
well I want zephrys to offer Weapon removal and secret removal when on board directly instead of worst/best case scenario all the time, for versatile plays, instead of offering 3 different removals with same kind of effect.
I think he should always offer at least one card that differs from the others in effect (IE. not three different sorts of damage spells), which I think would often negate situations like this occurring.
Zephrys needs work when it comes to secret removal, weapon removal and silence (deathrattle in particular, even though I know he cannot understand/see the exact deathrattle effects) IMO.
Its hard to programme stuff like this given zeph is probably already spaghetti code. A logic of; player has lethal, check board state, check lethal again, check secret in play, otgerwise over best value cards from mana bucket; might make some sense but if zeph has to work out whether the player needs any cards to deal with the board to get lethal it will probably stop at that point and just offer 3 cards that help with that condition to achieve lethal rather than go through the whole logic to check if there is anything that could prevent lethal.
See, I can understand him having difficulty with deathrattles - they're so varied, and if your lethal (or other optimal path) is going to involve destroying random deathrattle X, there are just too many to program in (and they can't program more each time a new deathrattle comes out). I first discovered the deathrattle issue when I missed a lethal due to Zeph not giving me Savage Roar or Bloodlust when a taunt deathrattle (with the deathrattle being irrelevant) being in the way - either board buff would've been enough damage to bust through the taunt and deal lethal to face (Silence wasn't sufficient), but didn't get offered either board buff and had to settle for a Flamestrike.
Secrets though - that's just odd. Maybe they're future proofing him, but at least right now I don't think there's a single secret that would stop lethal on board if Zeph gives you Flare. Don't do spell-cast-interacting secrets all trigger after the spell, and all get stopped by Flare? This doesn't even seem like a complex coding issue - if lethal on board and opponent has secrets, offer Flare. That said, perhaps the complexity lies in how this conditional would interfere with other conditionals. I don't know, but from a non-programmer point of view it seems super simple.
Secrets though - that's just odd. Maybe they're future proofing him, but at least right now I don't think there's a single secret that would stop lethal on board if Zeph gives you Flare. Don't do spell-cast-interacting secrets all trigger after the spell, and all get stopped by Flare? This doesn't even seem like a complex coding issue - if lethal on board and opponent has secrets, offer Flare. That said, perhaps the complexity lies in how this conditional would interfere with other conditionals. I don't know, but from a non-programmer point of view it seems super simple.
I believe Counterspell is the only one that stops Flare, and unless there are several secrets, that too would disappear (after proc'ing) with use of Flare.
it’s simple: zephrys is programmed for standard. He just won’t consider the possibility of a wild card like iceblock. As to your question of what to do, I believe mana manipulation and attacking are the only options to interact with zephrys
I just lost a game against quest mage in wild - he stalled the entire game and let me build my board, to the point where I had lethal on board with him having one secret up. I figured it was Ice Block, but with lethal on board and Zephrys the Great in hand, I assumed some sort of secret removal would be offered. But instead I got three damage spells, each of which added nothing to my turn - either I have lethal, or it's Block and more damage won't help.
Naturally, he killed me with the quest on the very next turn. But my question, besides whining about how unreliable Zephrys is at times, is if there is any way for me to secure the right options from discovery in a case like this?
Zephrys has no way of knowing and doesn't take into account what secret it could possibly be. He just pushed your lethal even further.
The thing you could've done was to use enough mana to be exactly at 2 mana after playing Zephrys to try to force a Flare offering or at 4 mana to try forcing SI:7 Infiltrator.
His reluctancy to offer Flare when secrets are up has annoyed me too. I hope they patch it soon.
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just make sure you only have 2 mana left then he will offer you flare 100%
Sadly, because of several Emperor procs, I had no way of getting to 2 mana (or 4).
Force mana according to what you want in this situation by limiting the options you want
Blizz should have programmed Zephrys to always offer secret removal if you already have lethal on board and a secret is the only thing in the way. This has been the case for me, no idea why Zephrys missed lethal for you.
While there was no way in this particular instance for me to get to 2 or 4 mana, I believe it would be better if Zephrys was more logical in such instances anyway - if he offers me Flare, I win 100 % of the time with the information he has access to, as far as I know?
Zephrys should be able to see that the board has exact lethal and that there is a secret that stands in the way for that to happen.
Zephrys totally didn't see the secret for me despite that I had more than enough lethal damage, he gave me damage burst cards instead.
well I want zephrys to offer Weapon removal and secret removal when on board directly instead of worst/best case scenario all the time, for versatile plays, instead of offering 3 different removals with same kind of effect.
I think he should always offer at least one card that differs from the others in effect (IE. not three different sorts of damage spells), which I think would often negate situations like this occurring.
Zephrys needs work when it comes to secret removal, weapon removal and silence (deathrattle in particular, even though I know he cannot understand/see the exact deathrattle effects) IMO.
Its hard to programme stuff like this given zeph is probably already spaghetti code. A logic of; player has lethal, check board state, check lethal again, check secret in play, otgerwise over best value cards from mana bucket; might make some sense but if zeph has to work out whether the player needs any cards to deal with the board to get lethal it will probably stop at that point and just offer 3 cards that help with that condition to achieve lethal rather than go through the whole logic to check if there is anything that could prevent lethal.
If iceblock was in standard you can bet a secret removal would be offered, no matter how much mana you'd have left!! Zephrys is less reliable in wild
See, I can understand him having difficulty with deathrattles - they're so varied, and if your lethal (or other optimal path) is going to involve destroying random deathrattle X, there are just too many to program in (and they can't program more each time a new deathrattle comes out). I first discovered the deathrattle issue when I missed a lethal due to Zeph not giving me Savage Roar or Bloodlust when a taunt deathrattle (with the deathrattle being irrelevant) being in the way - either board buff would've been enough damage to bust through the taunt and deal lethal to face (Silence wasn't sufficient), but didn't get offered either board buff and had to settle for a Flamestrike.
Secrets though - that's just odd. Maybe they're future proofing him, but at least right now I don't think there's a single secret that would stop lethal on board if Zeph gives you Flare. Don't do spell-cast-interacting secrets all trigger after the spell, and all get stopped by Flare? This doesn't even seem like a complex coding issue - if lethal on board and opponent has secrets, offer Flare. That said, perhaps the complexity lies in how this conditional would interfere with other conditionals. I don't know, but from a non-programmer point of view it seems super simple.
I believe Counterspell is the only one that stops Flare, and unless there are several secrets, that too would disappear (after proc'ing) with use of Flare.
it’s simple: zephrys is programmed for standard. He just won’t consider the possibility of a wild card like iceblock. As to your question of what to do, I believe mana manipulation and attacking are the only options to interact with zephrys