What Would DKMR Do? #6
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
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Written by [DKMR]Varranis
Welcome to this week’s “What Would DKMR Do?” Each week we’ll present an in-game situation and discuss the possible lines of play. Here’s the scenario for this week:
This may be our most challenging scenario yet! We’re definitely behind, and need to find a way to pull ourselves out of this precarious situation. Let’s see how you would have climbed back into the game!
Izrem said:
I would Holy Fire Rag to get out of lethal on board, plus it puts the opponent’s Rag in range of mine. Then I would SWP the cleric to prevent card draw and drop a target for my Rag. Last I’d hero power heal myself.
Izrem has identified the perilous situation we’re in and that we need to find a way to deal with his board or heal up. Holy Fire should definitely bring us out of range of lethal the following turn and there’s definitely merit to increasing our odds of removing our opponent’s Ragnaros.
Ciarnirl pondered his options:
I’d kill a blademaster with holy fire and smite, gain some life. Then I’d SWP the cleric. If Rag hits the 8/10 Rag, you have plenty of ways to finish it off next turn. If he hits the second Blademaster, that’s positive. If he hits face, lethal is threatened afterwards.
His play maximizes life gained and minimizes life lost but leaves us open to our opponent’s Ragnaros. No matter how this game plays out, removing the Ragnaros is going to take a little time and a little luck, so going for the surefire removal of a difficult to remove Blademaster is definitely a sound course of action. And as Ciarnirl mentioned, even if you hit the opponent’s Ragnaros, a 2 health Ragnaros is much easier to deal with than a 10 health Ragnaros.
Olidan mused:
Play Drake, if I draw Death (or incase I run BGH), kill rag, pain cleric. If I do not draw Death/BGH, I use holy nova to kill the cleric and put the rag within kill range of our rag, and I heal myself for 2 which is now three above lethal.
This play allows you to get lucky if the Azure Drake hits Shadow Word: Death or Big Game Hunter and puts you in a solid position for Ragnaros and Holy Fire to deal with his minions on subsequent turns.
Josh Gotlieb proposed the ever popular:
YOLO Thoughtsteal! Pray
While definitely not the correct play, this is probably the most enjoyable play. Who knows what thoughts you might steal! Unfortunately the current board requires an immediate response. Thoughtsteal is an excellent card to generate card advantage and pull unexpected threats in the early to mid-game, but mostly clogs your mana once the board has developed this far. Thoughtsteal at your own risk.
So what would DKMR do?
We would play the Azure Drake first. Ideally we draw a Shadow Word: Death or Big Game Hunter and play it to remove the Ragnaros. We would then Shadow Word: Pain the Northshire Cleric in order to maximize our Ragnaros’ chance of hitting a Blademaster and deny our opponent card draw. We play the Drake assuming will not draw the Shadow Word: Death or Big Game Hunter. Casting Holy Nova after the Azure Drake is a perfectly strong play. It removes the Cleric, puts the Ragnaros in range of ours, and puts the Blademasters in range of Holy Fire on the following turn. Note that playing the Azure Drake also mitigates damage by reducing his Ragnaros’ ability to hit our face or drawing an attack from a Blademaster.
This series of plays is slightly more risky than removing a Blademaster with Holy Fire and Holy Smite. If our Ragnaros misses a minion, Holy Fire or Holy Smite brings us into range of his Ragnaros. However, we feel this risk is worth the upside of the more proactive play of playing the Azure Drake and Holy Nova. Drawing a card offers the opportunity for a best case scenario and playing the Nova allows us the potential to trade very efficiently on subsequent turns. While we may lose the game to a specific combination of cards and luck, we need to take a little risk and play to our outs in order to create a game changing scenario.
Next week we’ll be talking about the scenario below. What would you do? Let us know in the comments!
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So many choices….The first thing I’m tempted to do is drop the Elite and swing for face, but I’d rather have the Elite for the turn after I drop Alex, since it looks like this match is certainly going to come down to that. I think I’d Slam Cairn and draw a card, drop the Armorsmith, then buy 2 more armor. Basically, we’re just stalling until we can play Alex, then going with the Elite, Alex, and an axe to the face FTW.
Elite would also be bad because wrath can remove it for 2 mana and the 4 damage wouldn’t impact his life total enough to matter.
You’re thinking way too far ahead, that play requires between now and turn 10 that he doesn’t drop any taunts, can’t remove your alex, gains no life AND doesn’t pressure your life.
So many choices….The first thing I’m tempted to do is drop the Elite and swing for face, but I’d rather have the Elite for the turn after I drop Alex, since it looks like this match is certainly going to come down to that. I think I’d Slam Cairn and draw a card, drop the Armorsmith, then buy 2 more armor. Basically, we’re just stalling until we can play Alex, then going with the Elite, Alex, and an axe to the face FTW.
Elite would also be bad because wrath can remove it for 2 mana and the 4 damage wouldn’t impact his life total enough to matter.
You’re thinking way too far ahead, that play requires between now and turn 10 that he doesn’t drop any taunts, can’t remove your alex, gains no life AND doesn’t pressure your life.
I would slam Cairne and see what I draw, if I don’t get anything important I would use Fiery War Axe to kill him and then armor up
Well, I can definitely see what you mean, but I don’t see it as free. If Cairn kills the Armorsmith, that’s one turn with a beastie off my face and a free point of armor. Either way it goes the Smith is going to die the next turn because I’m going to use it to off Cairn after I play Wyvern and Whirlwind. Like I said, I’m really just buying time for turns 9 and 10.
i agree with your play, slam, fiery axe and then armor up. Assuming no relevant draw/play on his side, next turn id Korkron -> armorsmith -> whirlwind and use the Korkron to kill the Baine. Saving the armorsmith just neted you 3 extra armor and you still have the armorsmith up, your axe up and a bunch of goodies in hand.
I would slam Cairne and see what I draw, if I don’t get anything important I would use Fiery War Axe to kill him and then armor up
Well, I can definitely see what you mean, but I don’t see it as free. If Cairn kills the Armorsmith, that’s one turn with a beastie off my face and a free point of armor. Either way it goes the Smith is going to die the next turn because I’m going to use it to off Cairn after I play Wyvern and Whirlwind. Like I said, I’m really just buying time for turns 9 and 10.
i agree with your play, slam, fiery axe and then armor up. Assuming no relevant draw/play on his side, next turn id Korkron -> armorsmith -> whirlwind and use the Korkron to kill the Baine. Saving the armorsmith just neted you 3 extra armor and you still have the armorsmith up, your axe up and a bunch of goodies in hand.
No offense but I feel like your analysis of the thoughtsteal play is fairly lazy as it fails to account for the specifics of that board state, although to be fair I didn’t explain much originally. Considering its a priest mirror and there are two rags alive its fairly safe to assume each of you still has at least 1 probably 2 SW:Death’s left in your decks. Given your opponent has about half as many cards in his deck as you do in yours you have significantly better odds of finding a SW:D drawing 2 from his deck than 1 from yours. Furthermore even if you don’t get it, there are a number of outs you can draw with 2 chances. A circle of healing allows you to soul priest, circle, SW:P, holy smite and hero power to kill 2 of his minions and put his rag in range of yours. He probably isn’t running BGH but if he is you could draw that too. Drawing a Faceless Manipulator wouldn’t be terrible with a little RNG from your now 2 rags. Even stealing a power word: shield wouldn’t be bad as it would give you one more shot at the SW:D you really want. In the end I fall back on one of the fundamental principles of Magic: The Gathering. When you are significantly far behind the highest variance play is usually the best, and atm you are very far behind.
ok, there are a couple problems with your reasoning. First and foremost playing Thoughtsteal in this situation is playing around a variable we have ZERO knowledge about, namely the decklist of our opponent. Sure, its somewhat safe to assume he has at least 1 SWD, and maybe 2 SWD and 2 BGH which would be awesome, but he could also pack 0 of either, and the thougthsteal is wasted mana. And this is because (and this another one of the issues with your reasoning) he has used both circle healings last turn and at least one of the PWS (as evidenced by his Rag).
So assuming he has 1 answer left in his deck (which sounds like a reasonable guess) and about 15 cards in his deck by the look of it you have around 10% odds of drawing it. If you dont, you have spent 3 of your precious mana for nothing, you are still in “lethal” range and you havent developed your board or dealt with his, which leaves you with some very suboptimal plays left
I generally agree with cosmeagol’s response. You have a guaranteed reasonable play (Drake->Nova) which also has a level of variance to net you a stronger play (drawing off Drake into SW:D or BGH). I don’t think Thoughtsteal gives you any higher chances for an out considering you don’t know if he’s running SW:D even (it’s definitely not a card you can assume a player runs even if it’s more likely than not). If you miss on Thoughtsteal, your best play is probably to Holy Fire and Smite a Blademaster. While reasonable, I tend to prefer the former play.
CCG’s are games of imperfect information. You have to make assumptions about what’s in your opponents hand and what’s in his deck if you are going to play optimally. That being said, in my opinion, I seriously doubt he’s running zero copies of SW:D in his priest deck at rank 1. Druid and Handlock are very big players in the meta at that level and you cannot afford to essentially autolose those matchups. For that matter if I can’t assume he’s running SW:D’s, which I fully would, I can’t assume varranis is running them in his deck either, although I would give varranis enough credit that he would be running them. The opponent has about 10 cards left in his deck. Assuming he’s running 2 SW:D, which he should be, you have a 35% chance of hitting one. If he’s running 1 you have a 20% chance. Even then there is still a good chance of thoughtsteal hitting something relevant you can play with 7 mana left over. Just looking at viable cards commonly ran in priest control there are a number of cards that give you viable albeit unspectacular plays in the event that you don’t hit the SW:D, including: wild pyromancer, earthen ring farseer, cabal shadow priest, sen’jin, yeti, defender of argus, faceless manipulator. In the end you really don’t have any good plays available to you. Varranis, you are probably correct that drake->nova is the least bad play, but personally when afforded no good plays I’d rather just draw more cards and hope I draw into a better play. Even worst case that I draw dead, I can still Soul Priest, SW:P the cleric, and smite the rag, and be at almost the same board if I drake->nova. I still killed his cleric and brought his rag in range of mine while putting a body on board.
but you havent healed up so you are still in RNG lethal :P. I agree that card games are games of incomplete information (i did say zero knowledge which is different and true) and you have to make educated guesses, mostly when playing around what your opponent might have in hand. And this little puzzles are even more so, since you dont have key information you would have if you were playing the actual game, like key cards used by either player or even your own decklist. That being said, i guess the bottom line is its a matter of perspectives when choosing your own “educated guess” to guide your play. You choose to believe he probably has 2 SWD, a Faceless Manipulator and maybe even a BGH, which makes the thoughtsteal an appealing play in this RNG-heavy situation. Me, i like to play on the safe side (pesimistic play you might call it heh). I always choose the worst case scenario, when i have to play around the cards he has in hand, i think he has 2 copies of every harmful card. And in this situation where i have to play WITH his cards i think that he might have just a single SWD, and at that, he might have drawn it last turn when he drew a card out of his last CoH with only 2 mana open. Also, his Rag might actually be his Faceless manipulator on our Rag. I could go on like this for a while looking at worst case scenarios :P. As i said, in the end, theres always a personal bias towards certain plays based on your character as a player. I did sugest thoughtsteal as a gamble play myself so its not that i think its a terrible play. But i tend not to choose gamble plays myself if i see another way out.
No offense but I feel like your analysis of the thoughtsteal play is fairly lazy as it fails to account for the specifics of that board state, although to be fair I didn’t explain much originally. Considering its a priest mirror and there are two rags alive its fairly safe to assume each of you still has at least 1 probably 2 SW:Death’s left in your decks. Given your opponent has about half as many cards in his deck as you do in yours you have significantly better odds of finding a SW:D drawing 2 from his deck than 1 from yours. Furthermore even if you don’t get it, there are a number of outs you can draw with 2 chances. A circle of healing allows you to soul priest, circle, SW:P, holy smite and hero power to kill 2 of his minions and put his rag in range of yours. He probably isn’t running BGH but if he is you could draw that too. Drawing a Faceless Manipulator wouldn’t be terrible with a little RNG from your now 2 rags. Even stealing a power word: shield wouldn’t be bad as it would give you one more shot at the SW:D you really want. In the end I fall back on one of the fundamental principles of Magic: The Gathering. When you are significantly far behind the highest variance play is usually the best, and atm you are very far behind.
ok, there are a couple problems with your reasoning. First and foremost playing Thoughtsteal in this situation is playing around a variable we have ZERO knowledge about, namely the decklist of our opponent. Sure, its somewhat safe to assume he has at least 1 SWD, and maybe 2 SWD and 2 BGH which would be awesome, but he could also pack 0 of either, and the thougthsteal is wasted mana. And this is because (and this another one of the issues with your reasoning) he has used both circle healings last turn and at least one of the PWS (as evidenced by his Rag).
So assuming he has 1 answer left in his deck (which sounds like a reasonable guess) and about 15 cards in his deck by the look of it you have around 10% odds of drawing it. If you dont, you have spent 3 of your precious mana for nothing, you are still in “lethal” range and you havent developed your board or dealt with his, which leaves you with some very suboptimal plays left
I generally agree with cosmeagol’s response. You have a guaranteed reasonable play (Drake->Nova) which also has a level of variance to net you a stronger play (drawing off Drake into SW:D or BGH). I don’t think Thoughtsteal gives you any higher chances for an out considering you don’t know if he’s running SW:D even (it’s definitely not a card you can assume a player runs even if it’s more likely than not). If you miss on Thoughtsteal, your best play is probably to Holy Fire and Smite a Blademaster. While reasonable, I tend to prefer the former play.
CCG’s are games of imperfect information. You have to make assumptions about what’s in your opponents hand and what’s in his deck if you are going to play optimally. That being said, in my opinion, I seriously doubt he’s running zero copies of SW:D in his priest deck at rank 1. Druid and Handlock are very big players in the meta at that level and you cannot afford to essentially autolose those matchups. For that matter if I can’t assume he’s running SW:D’s, which I fully would, I can’t assume varranis is running them in his deck either, although I would give varranis enough credit that he would be running them. The opponent has about 10 cards left in his deck. Assuming he’s running 2 SW:D, which he should be, you have a 35% chance of hitting one. If he’s running 1 you have a 20% chance. Even then there is still a good chance of thoughtsteal hitting something relevant you can play with 7 mana left over. Just looking at viable cards commonly ran in priest control there are a number of cards that give you viable albeit unspectacular plays in the event that you don’t hit the SW:D, including: wild pyromancer, earthen ring farseer, cabal shadow priest, sen’jin, yeti, defender of argus, faceless manipulator. In the end you really don’t have any good plays available to you. Varranis, you are probably correct that drake->nova is the least bad play, but personally when afforded no good plays I’d rather just draw more cards and hope I draw into a better play. Even worst case that I draw dead, I can still Soul Priest, SW:P the cleric, and smite the rag, and be at almost the same board if I drake->nova. I still killed his cleric and brought his rag in range of mine while putting a body on board.
but you havent healed up so you are still in RNG lethal :P. I agree that card games are games of incomplete information (i did say zero knowledge which is different and true) and you have to make educated guesses, mostly when playing around what your opponent might have in hand. And this little puzzles are even more so, since you dont have key information you would have if you were playing the actual game, like key cards used by either player or even your own decklist. That being said, i guess the bottom line is its a matter of perspectives when choosing your own “educated guess” to guide your play. You choose to believe he probably has 2 SWD, a Faceless Manipulator and maybe even a BGH, which makes the thoughtsteal an appealing play in this RNG-heavy situation. Me, i like to play on the safe side (pesimistic play you might call it heh). I always choose the worst case scenario, when i have to play around the cards he has in hand, i think he has 2 copies of every harmful card. And in this situation where i have to play WITH his cards i think that he might have just a single SWD, and at that, he might have drawn it last turn when he drew a card out of his last CoH with only 2 mana open. Also, his Rag might actually be his Faceless manipulator on our Rag. I could go on like this for a while looking at worst case scenarios :P. As i said, in the end, theres always a personal bias towards certain plays based on your character as a player. I did sugest thoughtsteal as a gamble play myself so its not that i think its a terrible play. But i tend not to choose gamble plays myself if i see another way out.
I believe that slamming is choice that comes naturally. See what we draws as we don’t have any great plays this turn anyways. We have quite an advantage in terms of hand size so we don’t need to rush. After that if nothing important is drawn I probably play fiery war axe and kill cairn. Then armor up. Next turn probably would be azure drake whirlwind, fiery war axe kill baine, if no taunt shows up (or any other immediate danger).
I believe that slamming is choice that comes naturally. See what we draws as we don’t have any great plays this turn anyways. We have quite an advantage in terms of hand size so we don’t need to rush. After that if nothing important is drawn I probably play fiery war axe and kill cairn. Then armor up. Next turn probably would be azure drake whirlwind, fiery war axe kill baine, if no taunt shows up (or any other immediate danger).
I don’t see an easy way to remove it this turn, and if you kill off the first 4/5 you have no efficient way to get rid of the other 4/5 next turn. I may just play the azure and pass. I would assume he would run cairne into the drake and leave cairne at one health leaving it an easy cleanup for the whirlwind if I choose to go that route next turn. That would also draw me a card from the azure to give me more options next turn. Worst case scenario if I don’t draw anything better to deal with it, I can whirlwind, slam, fiery war axe to remove both forms of cairne and damage any other minion he played for a possible execute later on, and that leaves me enough mana to play the armor smith or to armor up. I don’t see the drake’s spell power being useful in this matchup so he can be used as a sacrifice, plus it will distract your opponent from hitting you in the face causing you to lose your armor.
People keep pushing that slam+war axe play. While that isn’t a bad play, it doesn’t develop your board, it doesn’t fully remove the threat, it shreds your armor, and you have no good plays on the following turn. You can’t play the drake next turn as you are going to be busy handling his Baine and whatever else he played so you lose the chance to draw with azure for a potential out for a couple more turns. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right when you don’t really have a good follow up play. And you can always do the slam+war axe next turn, but you more than likely won’t be able to azure next turn. Just my thoughts. I feel like you need to be increasing your options here, not limiting them. Plus if he runs over your azure he isn’t getting much of a value as the azure already replaced itself anyway.
I don’t see an easy way to remove it this turn, and if you kill off the first 4/5 you have no efficient way to get rid of the other 4/5 next turn. I may just play the azure and pass. I would assume he would run cairne into the drake and leave cairne at one health leaving it an easy cleanup for the whirlwind if I choose to go that route next turn. That would also draw me a card from the azure to give me more options next turn. Worst case scenario if I don’t draw anything better to deal with it, I can whirlwind, slam, fiery war axe to remove both forms of cairne and damage any other minion he played for a possible execute later on, and that leaves me enough mana to play the armor smith or to armor up. I don’t see the drake’s spell power being useful in this matchup so he can be used as a sacrifice, plus it will distract your opponent from hitting you in the face causing you to lose your armor.
People keep pushing that slam+war axe play. While that isn’t a bad play, it doesn’t develop your board, it doesn’t fully remove the threat, it shreds your armor, and you have no good plays on the following turn. You can’t play the drake next turn as you are going to be busy handling his Baine and whatever else he played so you lose the chance to draw with azure for a potential out for a couple more turns. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right when you don’t really have a good follow up play. And you can always do the slam+war axe next turn, but you more than likely won’t be able to azure next turn. Just my thoughts. I feel like you need to be increasing your options here, not limiting them. Plus if he runs over your azure he isn’t getting much of a value as the azure already replaced itself anyway.
Slam, fiery war axe, armor up seems like a fine play under the circumstances. The battle against druid is won on the board and that puts you in the best shape to fight for board control going forward. It gives you better options for next turn to kill his baine and deal with whatever his turn 7 play is. Playing minions into that board just allows him to get more value from his cairn and further establish a stranglehold on the board. Shredding armor like that may not seem great but this late in the game druid has plenty of ways to keep our armor down, we don’t have a shield slam anyway, and we’re in pretty good shape life/armor wise. We also aren’t as reliant on shield slam right now as we have plenty of solid options in our hand to deal with his future plays and an alex to set up for a quick kill. Normally druid can be a tough match-up for warrior control but if we’ve managed to keep his board this reasonable at this point in the game we’re in decent shape. All we need to do now is keep his board manageable so we can keep our life total high enough to safely drop alex and hopefully be able to finish from there.
Slam, fiery war axe, armor up seems like a fine play under the circumstances. The battle against druid is won on the board and that puts you in the best shape to fight for board control going forward. It gives you better options for next turn to kill his baine and deal with whatever his turn 7 play is. Playing minions into that board just allows him to get more value from his cairn and further establish a stranglehold on the board. Shredding armor like that may not seem great but this late in the game druid has plenty of ways to keep our armor down, we don’t have a shield slam anyway, and we’re in pretty good shape life/armor wise. We also aren’t as reliant on shield slam right now as we have plenty of solid options in our hand to deal with his future plays and an alex to set up for a quick kill. Normally druid can be a tough match-up for warrior control but if we’ve managed to keep his board this reasonable at this point in the game we’re in decent shape. All we need to do now is keep his board manageable so we can keep our life total high enough to safely drop alex and hopefully be able to finish from there.