Hearthpwn

There just needs to be a neutral (probably a new legendary so you can only do it once) that essentially does what Flare does minus the card draw. The reason it should be a legendary is because if we could use two of it hunters would essentially have no upside to using flare besides the low mana cost and the one card draw. I'm thinking Nessingwary as the right lore character.

Hemmet Nessingwary: 3/2 for 4. Battlecry: Destroys ALL secrets and unstealths ALL minions.

Quote from zweid »

Quote from Pepo20 »

card like Blood Knight is too strong... Acidic Swamp Ooze is right choice

Totally agree on this, even 3 Mana would be okay for it like BGH. Would it clear all or just one secret? I think just one could be enough, just the one which was played the last?

If we're speaking hypotheticals here, why shouldn't it just be able to clear all the Secrets currently being played by the opponent? It should be able to punish the greedy. That's what Ooze does if the Rogue adds a Deadly Poison (or two) to their weapon of choice.

This could also all be remedied with a minion/spell that can silence "characters" instead of just minions. Silencing a hero would remove Secrets as well as Frozen status.

Even though Hunter's Secrets are frustrating, I don't mind them. Ice Block can't be played around until the Mage's health is close to zero, where you can calculate leaving them with just 1 Health after the blow activates it. The reemergence of Freeze Mage and Ice Block has made more of an unfun to play against deck than even Hunter pre-UTH nerf.

They need to release a netural Legendary Creature in Naxx. It would fit and it would be Interrogator (something forgot his whole name). When he is played he would say, "I will the secrets from your flesh" (what he actually said).

I could imagine a minion like Harrison Jones, except affecting secrets instead of weapon durability... Harrison Holmes?

I think there should be something, but not as direct as destroying. Another option would be neutral creatures that don't destroy secrets, but just reveals (as in, makes visible) secrets. 

Few ways to work this - 

1 - could reveal as battle cry.

2 - could reveal at end of turn.

I like the second version as there could be more variety for other interesting forms. E.g; 

a- Spy - cc 1. 1/1 stealth - at the end of your turn reveal (not destroy) a secret. 

And, for kicks...

b- Legendary - Guild of Spies. cc 3 - Stealth. 2/3.  At the beginning  of your turn reveal one of their secrets, spend 2 of your mana crystals and summon a 2/1 Infiltrator token with haste.

*edited twice

hmm, the Legendary seems op now. Had 'destroy 2 mana crystals' but that seemed too punishing. Dunno :/.

Maybe - cc 3. 2/3 Steath. At the beginning of your go reveal a secret, spend 2 mana crystals and summon a 1/1 infiltrator with haste.  

nah, a bit op still. The final flog of this proverbial horse. 

Guild of Spies, cc 3 - 3/2 Stealth. At the beginning of your turn, make one of your opponent's secrets visible, spend 3 mana and summon a 1/1 Infiltrator token with haste.

Well, it kinda works like a lightening rod for secrets - If he's copied there's the negatives of mana consumption built in. If he's destroyed he's done his job. The tokens activate minion traps, but are costly. But potentially could be effective with some ramp.   

I think its fine as it is. Flare is powerful against other hunters/mages but it doesn't hurt Paladins TOO badly. Every deck has bad match-ups and Hunter being a bad match-up for secrets/freeze mage is fine IMO. Especially now UTH has been nerfed and not many people run Hunter anyway. If Naxx introduces several more secrets, especially for classes that didn't have them before, then MAYBE this could need re-thinking, but I think it's fine how it is. You have to consider how useful secrets would be if everyone could counter them. I think they add an extra dimension to the game and would hate to see them become worthless.

Great question and a tough one for me to answer.  On one hand I am a definite proponent of this because secrets/traps can be annoying to play against (and occasionally devastating).  One the other hand, secrets are the only thing that makes certain Mage decks viable.  So here are my thoughts on this:

1. Hunters have flare.  As other's mentioned, giving everyone a way to do what flare does may take away from this.  That said, with a little creativity each class could have a different variation.  Some could remove secrets, buff when secrets are played, steal secrets, etc.  This would be inline with the idea of hard removal - most classes have it (hex, sheep, assassinate) but they all have slight variations.

2. Secrets are somewhat niche.  Currently 3 classes have secrets (though in the future I wouldn't be surprised if this changed).  Paladins generally don't bother with many of their's - and the one's they do bother with a more annoying than devastating.  So a minion or spell that destroys their secrets wouldn't be a huge deal in the current meta.  Hunters on the other hand got hit pretty hard with the nerf bat recently, and although you do see the occasional Face Hunter, more often then not you run into Trap Hunters these days.  A good Trap Hunter is pretty reliant upon his traps, and playing the right trap at the right time.  Having a way to negate even one of those traps would be a pretty big hit to this already not overly powerful build.  But I think they COULD still get by.  Mages on the other hand are pretty limited.  While people are trying to make them work, the only major success people are seeing is with Aggro Mage and Frost Mage (with or without giants).  Aggro Mage doesn't usually run secrets, so they would be unaffected.  Frost Mage on the other hand is HUGELY dependent upon secrets.  If someone removes Vaporize, that's not that big of a deal.  Removing Ice Barrier is a bit bigger of a deal.  Removing Ice Block is a HUGE deal - probably game breaking.

At the end of day this may result in people completely abandoning Frost Mage and just going back to Aggro Mage.  So this kind of change could lead to MORE aggro. 

That said, I am not opposed to the idea, but I DO think that the best suggestion so far is for it to be a neutral, legendary minion - similar to The Black Knight.  That would make expensive enough that not EVERY deck would have it, and limit it to 1 per deck.

I love the idea of a neutral legendary that destroys secrets...eventually. The Harrison Jones idea is my favorite so far. I don't believe that it will happen in Nax though, with nax's focus on deathrattles it just doesn't seem to fit. I feel like this ability should be a battlecry, a deathrattle just seems awkward and underpowered. At the moment I don't feel secrets are too strong but in the first full expansion, more secrets and a way to deal with them would be a welcome addition.

That would be too much

Secrets are already really underpowered and underused. Flare was all it took to stop secrets mage from happening. Maybe if blizzard starts jamming the game full of secrets they'll give a neutral answer to them, but for now they won't, and I don't even think they need to. The game is more fun (for me at least) when I have secrets to play around, it's way less predictable and more interesting than going, okay it's zoo, time to draw AoE or lose.

Quote from CasmX »

Yeah, I can definitely see that with what's currently in the game, other classes don't need a way to counter secrets. However, I believe that when more and more cards are introduced to the game, not only will there be more secrets that we'll be forced to play around but current secrets will be harder to play around and as a result, end up much more powerful. Like my example previously, who knows how powerful it will be for a mage to guarantee themselves an extra turn with Ice Block when the card pool is double what it is now. So, thinking further down the road, I do believe that eventually, other classes will need a way to counter secrets when there's more cards to consider.

Even when there's an abundance of secrets I wonder if people will gravitate towards a select few, making them as predictable as they are now.

for there to be any mechanic in the game that lacks even a simple soft counter, that is broken if you ask me.  i hate zoo decks, but to think that a board of 6-7 minions with 1-2 hp has absolutely nothing they can do when an explosive trap is played? thats bad.

Just popping off the top of the dome here - but what if instead of ooze or harrison type card if it was a power overwhelming/shadowflame type?  

i.e. for 4 mana you can 'buff' one minion to 'jump on the grenade' absorb all secrets, and die that turn?  or what if it was a 10 mana card that went down by 1 mana for every health that minion had????