Hearthpwn

Quote from Myu >>

Top 4 Battlegrounds are about Amalgams, divine shields, and poison. Since OP still thinks elementals are the best, I bet his rating is below 9k.

Top 4 Battlegrounds are about Amalgams, divine shields, elementals and poison. Since OP still thinks elementals are the best, I bet his rating is unbeknown to me and kind of a pointless retort from me on the fact i occasionally have to pick something other than elementals after a refresh as every other player has picked the pool dry of said elementals and then i get a bit lucky with divine shields  etc

Corrected it for you :)

Down to 15 health with demons decide my only hope is malganis so level up two turns in a row. On 1 health and in 8th place. Get the demons going and get matched against No1 . Hit him for 28 damage and kill him, go on to win. Fortunately no poisonous murlocs.

Stupid card,  two arcane missiles and a body for the cost, when played 65% win rate FFS

S Tier- Elementals

Garbage Tier - everything else

This brawl is horrible.

Who goes first win. Just make it "Toss a coin, win the game" and don't force me to play this crap just to get a pack.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional player. I am not even an above-average player, and I only made legend for the first time this season.  What I am is someone who loves this game plays it a lot and above all else likes to play control, so I have played Zephrys hundreds if not thousands of times in his lifespan and in that time I have learned to use him and came to some conclusions based on my data.

The Card

 How most people seem to think the card works:

Zephrys will analyse the board state and offer me the perfect card. He takes into account all cards currently on the board, their text, their stats and their minion type. He will provide me with 3 tailor-made solutions based on his assessment of the current situation.  He knows all the cards in hearthstone, knows all keywords and knows how to deal with every single scenario in the perfect manner meaning I do not have to think about playing him, I can just jam him down, and he will give me the victory or at least clear the board.

 How the card works:

Zephrys will analyse the board using a sophisticated algorithm. He only knows the classic set of cards off by heart including keywords and stat lines and when a new expansion is released the only tinkering to his algorithm is the inclusion of a new keyword or game mechanic and what potentially counters it.  Zephrys has an internal value system that prioritises certain things above others when he does his board assessment.

These assumptions have not been confirmed anywhere by developers or any deep dive on his code just through my anecdotal evidence, but it is what I believe to be correct and has served me well when playing this "great" card.

How I think his algorithm works

Zephrys assesses a board by taking each element in a specific order and then running that through an internal value system to assign a threat level to each of the opponent's cards and how detrimental they are to his player's chances of winning the game or surviving the turn.

I also believe that Zephrys knowledge of hearthstone and its cards is limited only to the classic set of cards which he knows every single detail of and keywords from all other expansions which he only knows in general terms.  The reason I believe this is because if Zephrys knew every single card on an individual basis there would be some poor code monkey on team 5 who had only one job and that would be coding Zephrys for 8 hours a day, and he would still be catching up on last years cards right now. So they gave him the classic set as the basis for his card knowledge, and now he uses that knowledge to assign threat levels based on the factors below.

Mana remaining - This is the number one thing Zephrys will assess because he will offer the optimal card in whatever mana bracket you have left.

Player health - He determines if there is a way for him to offer lethal to his player or if there is nothing else on board and his player is low he will provide healing as a priority card.

Stats - He looks at the opponent's board and the stats of each card and decides which card pose the highest threat base on health, damage, and mana cost

Keyword - Contrary to popular belief Zephrys can read he just doesn't bother reading everything unless its a classic card because he can't see that text because in his brain only the classic set and various new keywords exist

Minion Type - Hands up anyone who has killed the Demon hunter Murloc by Zephrys and crabbing it to death? Nuff said he knows minion types and knows how to counter them as long as the said counter is a classic card.

Other Board States - Weapons, frozen cards, etc. he will read the situation and offer a card based on these factors if they pose a more significant threat or stand in the way of lethal.

We know what factors he looks at and if we assume that he only has the classic set for base card knowledge what can we glean from this well the number one complaint about Zephrys is his inability to read card text usually concerning death rattle. Still, when we look at death rattle in the classic set, we can kind of see why Zephrys is prioritising a minion's stats over the death rattle.

Good Deathrattle classic Set

So let's examine these card they all have death rattles, and they are all worth silencing or transforming to remove. Still, none of them would be substantial game-changing gains for your opponent except arguably Tirion, and that's on these cards individually.

 If your opponent has other factors in play Zephrys is going to prioritise removing the main body and not the rattle a lot more because in truth his knowledge of deathrattles is skewed by how weak the best deathrattles in the classic set are in comparison.

Bad Deathrattle classic Set

The Beast is partly responsible for Zephrys not prioritising deathrattles it has great stats for the cost, and the deathrattle is beneficial for you. He will use this criterion when looking at all other deathrattle minions and will assign good stats with a lousy death rattle.

 Now when we take all of his information about deathrattle cards into account, you can probably see why he doesn't see the need to offer hex or a silence most of the time especially on boards that have other factors in play.

How to use Zephrys effectively

There are 3 rules that I use when playing Zephrys, and they have never let me down, nor have they left me disappointed with the options he provided.

Rule 1 - Know what you want before you play him.

Knowing what you want him to offer is crucial because you can then manipulate your mana and board state so that he is much more likely to provide it.  If you wish to generate hex or polymorph to remove that death rattle minion, then remove as many other factors as you can and make sure that when you play Zeprys, you only have 4 mana remaining.

Rule 2 - Manipulate your Mana

Only Play zephrys when you have a specific amount of mana left so that you force him to prioritise cards that mana bracket, a great example of this is against Rez Priest he has played Vargoth on an empty board consider the two scenarios below.

Scenario 1

if you zephrys on 10 mana against Archmage Vargoth Zephrys would likely offer the following 3 options Shadow Word: Pain Natalie Seline and Tirion Fordring. Shadow word pain is the most efficient method of dealing with the opponent's board. It leaves you 6 mana to work with, Seline allows you to destroy the opponent's board and develops a strong one of your own and finally, Tirion is just a tremendous proactive card to play as it is both defensive and offensive at the same time.

Scenario 2

This time you hero power or play a 2 mana card and then you play Zephrys against Archmage Vargoth you guarantee that you get a Cabal Shadow Priest as one of your options because you have forced Zephrys to prioritise a 6 mana option.

Rule 3 - Treat him like a discover card, but you control his card pool

Zephrys is a discover card except you control what card he can discover, so it is your job to make sure you limit his card pool to the optimal solutions.  There is a reason Vulpera Scoundrel is in 1% of wild decks her discovery pool is so large there is no point in playing her but if you could limit her pool to a particular mana cost and knew which set she was limited too you would play her a lot more right? So treat Zephrys the same way, and you will not be disappointed.

Conclusion - aka TLDR

Zephrys is only coded to know the basic and classic set of cards and new keywords, he prioritises an option based on your remaining mana, and he doesn't read text outside of key words, stats and minion types oh and hex puts a taunt in the way so he will not offer hex that often because it denies face damage and we all know he is a big old smorcer at heart

Now stop complaining he didn't offer you the perfect solution and make his job easier by playing him correctly.