Thoughts On Duplicate
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
Announced on Thursday, Mages in Hearthstone will be gaining another secret when the Curse of Naxxramas adventure set goes live sometime this summer. Upon activation, the secret will award the player two copies of the first friendly minion to perish.
“My magic will tear you apart!” Into 2 pieces! Mage’s Duplicate doubles the trouble for foes in Curse of Naxxramas! pic.twitter.com/HGWqtdv3bM
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) May 29, 2014
At first glance, this secret seems incredibly strong, especially when paired with a card like Leeroy Jenkins. There’s definitely very real potential for massive burst damage if combined on turn seven. However, I think expectations have to be tempered. I don’t believe it’s a reliable enough combo to become a deck win condition, and here’s why.
- This combination working out as planned requires that come turn seven the Mage has nothing else on the board.
- This combination requires the Mage to draw into Leeroy. It’s doable, but it’ll require a setup akin to Miracle Rogue, one almost totally devoted to card draw.
- This combination requires an opponent to not have taunts on the board at the time of combo. The combination can certainly be split up, but that slows it down farther and adds in the complication of dealing with the whelp tokens. Doable, but again, it likely won’t be totally clean.
- This combination requires an absence of Explosive Trap and Noble Sacrifice. Admittedly that’s not a huge issue, but it’s due diligence to mention them. We haven’t seen the Curse of Naxxramas hunter card, so we don’t know how they’ll look yet. We do know that paladin’s are getting Avenge, and it frankly looks subpar.
Again, all of these hurdles can be overcome, but they make the likelihood of a perfect Duplicate/Leeroy combo less likely, especially at high levels of play. That said, I do see a lot of potential for Duplicate. The ideal cards to be matched with it shouldn’t be super expensive. While Cairne Bloodhoof would provide a lot of value, it would also be incredibly slow to play multiple Cairnes. I’m really high on minions with divine shield because they would allow for massive swings in card advantage. Silvermoon Guardian or Scarlet Crusader would be both be ideal, in my opinion. They’re not super expensive, both can be played on the same turn prior to ten mana, and they’ll get stuff done if they’re not handled.
I also really think there’s potential with Faerie Dragon because of how difficult it is to remove. The meta will definitely have changed by Curse of Naxxramas, but if it happens to be in a more spell heavy place, the ability to generate a bunch of Faerie Dragons could be both hilarious and terrifying. I know it’s something I’ll be messing around with.
What’re your thoughts on Duplicate? Will it be viable? Am I giving the Leeroy combo too little credit?
Because the mage deck (well, at least mine) is so spell heavy, I see this working well with cards like Sorcerer’s Apprentice, or (depending on whether or not you keep the increased attack when it dies and duplicates) Mana Wyrm. I’m also interested to see if you’ll be able to select which minion duplicates or if it will simply be the next friendly minion that dies.
Since Secrets can no longer activate on your turn, it will be the next friendly minion that dies.
I have to disagree Zenstyle. Often a mage deck will have no creatures on board at the start of its turn, especially since it has such massive removal spells it doesnt need the board presence.
All you other comments are really no different putting Force of Savage Roar in your deck. Yes it is situational but you will get it eventually. In this case it is not a win condition, it is ‘I play leeroy and hit you for 6, you either leave it on the board or give me two more leeroys’. And at the same time this card is strong with a lot of other creatures.
In my opinion duplicate will be an insanely strong card because it is really a focused card draw with a small risk.
If you are running an agro/charge deck, it will give you two smaller creatures or chargers to play (leeroy, arcane golems, mana wyrm, etc).
If you are running control you will get two control focused creatures (Water Elementals, Sunwalkers, etc).
I also want to point out – turn 10 Antonidas + Duplicate. 1 Fireball + 2 Antonidas.
This cards big weaknesses are to hex/polymorph (you get two frogs back) and having a board full of random cards (this can be controlled with the right deck).