three mana “Destroy your opponent’s strategy” and see his entire hand.
I’m getting really tired of cheats that let you view your opponent’s cards.
Hm, it goes both ways, plus it’s a card with a high skill requirement.
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I see nothing skillful about the card. The only thing you have to know is what type of deck your opponent is playing. Since you have their hand, any child could determine that.
And Priest has no strategy beyond “steal and heal” so your opponent doesn’t gain the same insane advantage that you do.
This card is just like FLJ to me. Too Good.
So I don’t really like the card much either from a design standpoint. BUT, I will agree it takes skill to use properly and it can backfire pretty badly if you slip up. It’s not as simple as “play the thing and it does the thing.”
You have value in your own hand you need to worry about giving your opponent access to.
That said, the skillful interaction behind it is pretty one-sided, aka it probably feels pretty skillful from the Priest’s perspective, but there’s not much you can/should do about it from the other side of the table.
I also think the nerf to it did more to bring it in line than a lot of people realize.
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God, that’s not how she is played at all. Unless you are somehow now playing Druid and qqing about Illu turn 3 plays.
It does require excellent handreading skills, basic knowledge about probability and an above averahe knowledge about your opponent’s deck and playstyle.
You just cannot randomly play her and expect to win, if you do, you’ll likely die.
5 Likes
That is my biggest problem with the card and any card that allows players to see the opponents hand.
I never want to see another comparison to poker in these forums while cards like this exist.
Believe me, I hate priest too. They feel TERRIBLE to play against, and sometimes they win in ways you can’t do anything about because of their card generation.
But you have to acknowledge the class takes skill to play. There’s a lot more difference between a high ranked Priest and a low ranked one than there is between, say a high ranked Hunter (just an example not attacking anyone if they like Hunter) and a low ranked one.
There isn’t so many deck archetypes that using the card is difficult.
The effect is way too good as is any card that allows opponents to see your hand.
That is not the primary reason this card is played. On the contrary, I play Lazul before I play Illu.
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But remember they get to see yours too, and they have three more mana to disrupt than you do ( plus they draw a card from your deck you didn’t know about when you played the Illucia).
The info sharing and resource draining goes both ways (again I do actually dislike the card from a competitive standpoint, I’m just defending some of its virtues because it’s not TOTALLY unfair).
3 Likes
well you cant have any removal in your hand
make sure they wont get plague of death for example ( on the card they draw )
and sometimes no taunts in your hand
ive used it vs mages who freeze my board but make the mistake of not removing it
once i have lethal on my board i use illucia to prevent them from freezing me for one turn even if i wont have mana left to play cards from their hand 
I don’t really hate priest. (although I have no fun facing them these days.) I used to love facing Shadow Priests back in the day, even though I lost to them quite a bit.
As a mage it was like a no holds barred shootout.
I think Team 5 has gone out of their way to make the class universally disliked
If this is a vent thread though I’m 100% with you. I freaking HATE this card. Enrage Warrior was already hard enough to play against Priest. If you play my Skippers… I pretty much lose on the spot 
1 Like
It is and it isn’t. I think the card text is too good. I really feel like seeing your opponents hand should never be allowed in games of this type.
I feel that [Mindrender Ilucia] is a healthy card itself. We have to factor that it was given to Priest. Maybe it should have been a Demon Hunter or Warlock card, or a xclass card for them both. It is more of a demon thing, right? In WoW, demons did infiltrate the king’s court. Wasn’t there suspicion that the king was demon possessed? Maybe it fits for Priest in that respect, but is Hearthstone following WoW lore that much?
The four aspects of MTGA that caused me to stop playing was: 1. excessive clicks to complete each turn, 2. excessive mill ability, 3. excessive use and power of side board cards (quest, hero, epic, whatever it all was), and 4. excessive scrying. All of these break pillars of good game design.
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Mtg has had all those things (except clicks) since it’s inception in 1993. It’s been popular all that time. That sounds like great game design to me. Hearthstone is learning from their example.
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I guess seeing your opponent’s hand has value considering the amount of random card generation that exists. I’ve always just played around the cards in my opponent’s deck because I assume they have it in hand, because they usually do.
Even then, though, Illucia at 3 mana is a pretty bad card in terms of performance and it’s not like Priest can reliably draw it before a Combo deck puts their combo together.
The idea that seizing your opponents hand and deck and then doing your best to throw both up in the air while shouting “Wheeeeeeeee” has a high skill requirement is ludicrous.
Mindrender Illicia is the first Hearthstone card that’s crossed the line between really bad for the game (i.e. The Caverns Below) and utterly unacceptable.
2 Likes
HM. https://hsreplay.net/archetypes/403/galakrond-dragon-priest#rankRange=TOP_1000_LEGEND&tab=mulligan-guide
Do you know which card has the worst played win rate in this Priest deck?
Illucia! Top legend 1000. Is it true that Illu is a bad card? No. Play Priest yourself and see if Illu is really that ez to play…
Its really strange, iv been playing daily since the release of scholomance and have not had this card played against me even once! Am i just lucky??