Lord Jaraxxus vs. Sacrificial Pact
by JR Cook - 11 years ago show comments
Sacrificial Pact is a pretty terrible Warlock card. 2 mana to destroy a demon and restore 5 health to your hero – most the time you’d have to sacrifice one of your minions to do so unless you happen to be playing in a mirror match against another Warlock, then at that point the card becomes pretty decent. However, the chances of that happening are pretty slim and I just don’t see the card making it in any constructed decks or arena decks for that matter.
However, it does have one hilarious use in the mirror match if your opponent happens to play Lord Jaraxxus (a Legendary 3/15 minion that destroys your hero and replaces him with Lord Jaraxxus). See the video below on what happens:
So as you can see, Lord Jaraxxus still counts as a demon so Sacrificial Pact destroys him. Since he replaced your hero that means you automatically die. We decided to test this out even further since Lord Jaraxxus is also a minion if spells like the Rogue Assassinate would work against him, unfortunately (or fortunately as is the case for the Warlock playing Jaraxxus) he does not still count as a minion and therefore can not be targeted.
Demonfire (2 mana to deal 2 damage to a minion, if it’s a friendly Demon give it +2/+2 instead) also does not appear to work on Jaraxxus either.
So that does make me wonder, is Sacrificial Pact’s ability with Lord Jaraxxus intended or is it a bug? I’m hoping for intended because it makes for a pretty funny outcome in a situation that probably doesn’t happen all that often.
EDIT: Also, if you are a Warlock and you play Lord Jaraxxus against a Paladin, make sure they do not have a secret up at the time. If by any chance they have Repentance then you’re looking at only 1 health left on your hero. Lord Jaraxxus will activate Repentance, make his life total 1 and then replace your hero with only 1 health.
EDIT #2: We asked developer Ben Brode if this is indeed intended and it is.
@BlizzPro intended 🙂
— Ben Brode (@bdbrode) September 29, 2013
Edit #3: Hunter secret Snipe and Mage secret Mirror Entity also work against Lord Jaraxxus. In the case of Mirror Entity though you will get a 3/15 legendary minion since Battle Cry effects aren’t activated. (Thanks @SaltyDagem for helping us test that)
Gotta push it further, does he trigger Snipe? Mirror Entity?
I don’t think so. It will only be affected by card with “demon” written on it and not “minion”
Repentance works and it says “minion”
When it’s cast it’s a minion, so it does trigger the minion secrets
Both Snipe and Mirror Entity work – see latest edit
That mirror entity is awesome.
I’ve actually found Sacrificial Pact can be quiet good if used with Power Overwhelming or if you know a demon is going to die, example having a Blood Imp up but wanting to use an Infernal.
Exactly! Considering how often cards are left weakened to the point of uselessness, and considering health is by far the greatest problem Warlocks face, Sacrificial Pact has its time and place in every Demon-based Warlock deck. Of course, you need to know when to use it, as it does destroy a minion, costs essentially two cards, and can ruin board advantage.
TIL secrets are bad for Jaraxxus
“most the time you’d have to sacrifice one of your minions to do so unless you happen to be playing in a mirror match against another Warlock, then at that point the card becomes pretty decent.”
Describing it as pretty decent is understating the effect significantly. Can you name another card that slays a minion (regardless of health) and heals the caster for 5?
Ok, sure, it’s a pretty great card in that scenario actually. But until Hearthstone allows sideboards against specific matchups it’s a pretty bad card otherwise.
Still, since you can have only two copies of the same cards, playing this as a one of seems pretty interesting. In regular matchups, it will just sacrifice a minion for 5 health wich can be interesting (and with all the discard that warlock has, it still allows you to have a not so useful card to discard), in mirror matchups it potentially slays an enemy minion for free and heals you (pretty strong imho) and in mirrors that play Jaraxxus, it’s game ^^ So it seems to me as a decent one of. 🙂
If snipe works, probably vaporize would work too if jaraxxus attacks the enemy hero thustly ending the game! Not sure though needs testing..
Sorry but it wont work. Snipe deals 4 damage to Jaraxxus before he becomes the hero, vaporise only works on minions
What if u mirrior then use a card to send jax to ur hand then play him?