ok, i’d like to discuss wilted shadow since it seems like a fun card, tho perhaps a potentially tilting combo card … i just played two games back to back where my wilted shadow combo both won me the game and lost me the game here’s how:
first the deck list:
### Custom Priest4
# Class: Priest
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raptor
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# 2x (1) Critter Caretaker
# 2x (1) Flash Heal
# 2x (1) Nightshade Tea
# 2x (1) Power Word: Shield
# 1x (1) Reach Equilibrium
# 2x (2) Annoy-o-Tron
# 2x (2) Lightspeed
# 2x (2) Thrive in the Shadows
# 2x (2) Wild Pyromancer
# 2x (3) Careless Crafter
# 1x (3) Dissolving Ooze
# 1x (3) Rest in Peace
# 1x (4) Crater Gator
# 2x (4) Gravedawn Sunbloom
# 2x (4) Greater Healing Potion
# 1x (5) Resuscitate
# 1x (5) Taelan Fordring
# 1x (7) Repackage
# 1x (7) Wilted Shadow
#
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#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
i drew inspiration from two other decks plus my deck last expo where i was trying to get zealot otk going that landed me on a hybrid imbue/protoss deck, but had tools (shaladrassil/hallucinate) to get a zealot finisher some games (got me to dia5 2 months, but not consistent enough in the meta to finish the legend climb – imbue/toss mage and imbue dragon got me there … i digress
in any case, the idea is this: i like the priest quest, but it seems like the quest alone is not going to win you games most games, everything seems to have huge minions, board clears, polymorphs, etc., and the but the 100% otk half of the deck also seems to have struggles against matchups that get a ton of health/armor/tempo … so i hybridized it and idk if it’s going to get me there this season, but at this point i’m just having fun with it with some moderate success so far … for the most part (i need to hit legend still with priest before i die)
now, before i made a “serious” priest deck for this season, and while i was still messing around with achievements, i ran into the otk variant that almost killed me, in fact, i would have killed me except the healing effect that triggers the wilted shadow attack … even though it procs after the damage is taken … is sort of treated like attacking with a lifesteal weapon where the damage u just took is negated before considering the “is the hero dead” evaluation … so that guy who lost to me, in that game who though he had it calculated out … sorry bro, i thought i was dead too, ur calculations were great, your interaction knowledge was lacking, but i’m sure never again
so back to the two games i played as the would be otk’er … my game plan has the following “flowchart” gameplan: i’m almost never trying to otk before the quest is complete, but if the opportunity presents, i will take it … so the first thing is to try to complete the quest asap and hope, that it was fast enough for the opponent to concede (has only happened once so far), if not, i would prefer to have the ooze in hand and play they merged elemental + ooze to get a bones in hand … then depending on the draw/other game conditions, i would like to play wilted shadow + bones to make it 15/15, and then use 2~3 bandages and/or 2 bandages + 1 flash heal to finish most games … the final backup plan is to let wilted shadow die and play rest in peace + crater gator and then the healing cards at the opponents face
now, the first game i was facing a hybrid quest/starship dk … game went late, i repacked a huge board away after the first big starship made a bunch of big minions … quest completed shortly after … dk had like 55 hp and 11 armor … i got off my last ditch combo and dealt 75 damage ftw … it was a great feeling, i took screenshots because its the first game i had the opportunity where i dealt major otk damage and proved the concept … all good here, nothing to see (yet)
2nd game, was against quest warrior … was looking like it could start to go long, i played my wilted shadow early to get it killed off b/c i had my rest in peace in hand and i had the rest of my combo much earlier (quest completed a bit sooner too), but fewer bandages in hand, warrior was at 30/30 hp and had a lot of armor for a lot of the game, however on the combo turn, i had whittled off the armor with on-board minions before pulling off the combo … rest in peace, bones, crator gator, two bandages and a flash heal … and … the wilted shadow would not attack … neither the bandages nor flash heal proc’d the wilted shadow to attack … i conceded as my only win condition remaining was about to be taken out by zilliax
so, wtf is up with that … i’m pretty sure the interaction of healing the opponent’s face + wilted shadow “works” form full hp sans crator gator, b/c i’m fairly certain the player who almost otk’d me with it only failed because i was at full hp … and less and i wouldn’t have survived at 1 hp … and i know that crator gator + combo works because it worked vs. the dk in the first game (tho having well above 30hp and armor, the hero was in a damaged state) … so what seems to be the weird interaction is playing crator gator on a full hp opponent and then the “non-healing healing” fizzle the attack procs (kind of like a reverse overheal??) … that seems like a really messed up bug for a combo that takes so much to put together … i’m going to going do some testing against the innkeeper, but if that theory is true, i still could have won that game, even with the warrior having up to like 11 armor (15 damage down to 26, 3 healing from bandage, then gator into remaining 30 damage to -1) … but that is such a niche piece of knowledge and also seems like it makes an already sorta ify combo that much harder to pull off
anyway, i hope it that case gets fixed if it’s a bug, and if not, hopefully someone gets something out of this if they are trying to play some version of wilted shadow deck
edit1 after testing vs the innkeeper: now i don’t know wtf happened b/c i did combo w/ crator gator vs. full hp opponent and it did work so the only other thing that i can think of was the the warrior did not take damage to his hp all game only to his armor, whereas the innkeeper (i played vs. priest so it would heal) did take damage face and was healed to full (between the two of us) prior to me pulling off the “last ditch” version of the combo … so, going to try vs. a warrior ai to see if that’s makes the difference (never damaged full hp) and if it does that seems like even more toward the “bug” and not just “need to know about this interaction” kind of thing
edit2 after 2 more innkeeper tests: i tested vs. a never damaged beyond armor damage warrior both → 1) to see if non-crator gator combo proc’d & 2) to see if crator gator combo proc’d … short answer: both worked … so why did it fail vs the human player??? is that hax? did i soft d/c? idkwtf happened now … it’s not like he had the d/r taunt “when this dies sleep all other minions” … and even if it did, wilted shadow proc effect doesn’t care about sleep/freeze … so what happened that game? anyone? beuler? and before someone says “bulwark of azzinoth” i grant that it would negate the incoming damage, but the point is that the attacks did not proc, not that the enemy hero did not take damage (and i’m fairly certain he didn’t have it on anyway)