I was playing hunter against a Paladin. He used a spell on his recruit, and had a pen flinger on the board. I had a secret pressure plate, and it was activated. It hit his pen flinger, however, even though it was suppose to destroy it, the game let him recall it back into his hand an cancelled out my pressure plate secret.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/SNX5Chbb4ArSP7oNqnyPyB
Not sure if it’s suppose to allow this to happen.
Yes, this is the correct behaviour, if Pen Flinger was played after Pressure Plate. The return to hand effectively cancels the damage (if the Pen Flinger is chosen as the target).
If Pen Flinger was played first, it would return to hand before the secret triggers and then another minion would be the target, or if none are left the secret would not trigger.
I’ve posted longer explanations on the mechanics before. Search for it if you want all the details.
It does not make any sense that it would allow the player to keep pen flinger if the secret was in place and he played pen flinger, used a spell, triggering the pressure plate which then hits the pen flinger, yet voids the pressure plate.
It sounds like Blizzard just couldn’t figure out how to code it properly, because if pressure plate attacks pen flinger, it should effectively kill it. Or they should code it so that if they don’t want pen flinger to die from being played after pressure plate is in play, they should let have it target the other minion on the board.
Instead of speculating, I suggest you hunt down the longer explanation. You’ll see that all mechanics that have been in the game since, well, forever, are all applied to this card with no exceptions or special casing.
Blizzard tries to minimize special case coding. Both because it makes it hard to maintain the code, but also (probably primarily) because they want the game to be predictable for those who know and understand the rules and mechanics of the interactions.
The Pen Flinger / Pressure Plate works exactly as I would have predicted if you had asked me in advance.