Got Lethal? #4: We Need a Miracle!
by JR Cook - 9 years ago show comments
Welcome to “Got Lethal?” a (hopefully) weekly feature that will try to put you on complicated, yet winnable situations. We will bring you puzzles of sorts where you are tasked with determining the best line of play, which mostly is play that will guarantee you the victory. Maybe this will help you train your pro-skills and perhaps with a bit of luck you won’t Miss Lethal ever again, or maybe the scenarios are way too fantastic to be of help on serious matches, anyway at least I hope you can have fun with them.
Your Hand
The Board
We Need a Miracle
So we’ve been laddering up with Oil rogue and we’ve had a great afternoon with a huge win streak that we’d love to keep intact. Sadly we’ve run into a different breed of Rogue, and coupled with a bunch of pretty unlikely RNG and some really bad draws we’ve been caught in a really awkward position. The saving grace might have been a Sorcerers Apprentice jumping out your Piloted Shredder after your opponent Blade Flurried to kill your board, perhaps he should’ve used one of his minions to clear your apprentice instead of putting you at 1 health.
Still, things look pretty grim, we kinda need our Oil and Blade Flurry combo but they are nowhere to be seen. Luckily we’ve been playing this deck a while and we know exactly what the 9 cards we have left to draw are: Edwin, Earthen Far Seer, Southsea Deckhand, SI:7 Agent, Loatheb, Piloted Shredder, Violet Teacher, Blade Flurry, and a Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil. Sadly, we have no way to know in which order will we draw them.
Passing the turn would be a concede, can you bypass our poor draws and lock onto lethal?
Extra Challenge
Ok, so maybe you thought this was really easy. Maybe you need something extra to challenge your superior intellect? Fear not, I’m here for you.
The Board and your hand are exactly the same, but the cards in your deck have changed. You no longer have access to Earthen Far Seer and SI: 7 Agent, instead you have a 2nd copy of Violet Teacher and Dr.Boom . Lethal is still there, can you find it?
Yeah, you probably can. It is still not that hard. But the real test is finding one sequence of plays that works regardless of the order in which you draw things, that my friends is this weeks EXTRA SUPER BONUS CHALLENGE!
Last week Cesar Gonzalez and Skarn provided us with an awesome pair of answers. Is this week your turn to make your way into the “Got Lethal?” imaginary leaderboards?
1.Gadgetzan (4mana left, 0 cards drawn)
2.backstab Anoy-o-tron(4mana left,1 card drawn,1 coin),
3.Deadly poison (4mana left,2 cards drawn,2 coins)
4.Sap Mechanical yeti (3mana left, 3 cards drawn, 3 coins)
5. Eviscerate face (2mana left, 4 cards drawn, 4 coins) ->8 hp left
6. use 3 coins (5 mana left, 7 cards drawn, 1 coin) -> if you draw tinker+ BF combo use it and win if not (its 5 mana with sorceres)..if not
7. use coin (6 mana left, 8 cards drawn, 0 coins) -> if you got tinker’s oil use it and play southsea (1 mana left) and kill arcane nuliffier with 6/2 sorceres and win with southsea+ weapon (8dmg for 8hp left) ..if not you might draw 1 into fatigue (need to use only BF)
8. southsea(5 mana left) + sorcerer kill arcane nuliffier -> go face with weapon (3/2 weapon) + BF (3 mana left, 2 hp left, finish with SI agent)
about 7, tinker oil can buff the gadgetzan also, which means there is a case where you can’t kill the nullifier with the sorceress.
in 8, t
1. Gadgetzan
2. Backstab gatgetzan, sap annoyatron, evis face (8 hp left) and deadly poison. Use coin after every spell.
3. You now have 8 cards in hand 1 in deck. You have 6 mana left.
4a. You drew oil: use oil (3 mana left) draws last of 9 cards, SI7 Gatgetzan to kill Gatgetzan(0 mana left), use coin (+1 mana you live because gatgetzan doesnt draw you into fatigue), use blade flurry (1 mana)for 6 dmg, sorceress apprentice face 3dmg, win.
4b. You didnt draw oil: Sourceress apprentice into nullifier taunt, southsea deckhand to finish it off ( 5mana left), hero power face for 3, blade flurry for 3(4 mana left), SI face to win.
Awesome work, if you can get lethal without using the SI Agent you win the internets.
1. Play gadgetzan (4 mana left)
2. Use all 4 spells, evisorate face, sap yeti, backstab anything. (2 mana left, 8hp left)
3. Use all 4 coins generated (6 mana, 1 card left in deck)
At this point there are three possibilities that matter.
A) you drew both oil and flurry
B) you drew oil
C) you drew flurry
Here’s how you get lethal with any of these outcomes:
A) you play oil, (3 mana left, 0 cards in deck) use farseer on self, (0 mana, 4 hp), play coin then flurry (1hp self remaining, 2hp of his remaining). SA into face for game.
B) same as a) haha
C) play farseer on self, (4hp, 3 mana), use weapon on arcane nullifier, (2hp remaining), use flurry (5hp of his remaining, 2mana remaining, 0 cards in deck). Use coin (1hp remaining, 3 mana), SI:7 on face and SA into face for game
I think I covered all the bases 🙂
That’s solid, can you beat the extra challenge?
Well the first way doesn’t use si:7, but I can rewrite c so it doesn’t use si:7.
C) farseer on self (3mana, 4hp) attack into arcane nullifier (2hp remaining), flurry (2mana, 0 cards in deck, 5hp of his left). Coin (3mana, 1hp remaining), use hero power, (1mana left), summon southsea and go face with both him and SA.
Well I can do both without Si:7, just change him to redagger and southsea in C)
But your extra challenge is fundamentally flawed because you are saying that there are 3 shredders in the deck 😉
you are absolutely right. Ill change that for dr.boom. You still need to drop the use of farseer though.
Can you pm me the answer to the super extra bonus challenge. I can’t do my head in like this much longer lol.
Did you end up seeing it from Skarn?
I think I have it figured out, felt like I took a math test!
Play Gadgetzan Auctioneer (6/10 Mana Used)
Play Deadly Poison (6/10 Mana Used) (1/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Gallywix Coin (5/10 Mana Used) (2/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Sap on Yeti ((5/10 Mana Used) (3/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Gallywix Coin (4/10 Mana Used) (4/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Backstab on Tron (5/10 Mana Used) (5/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Gallywix Coin (4/10 Mana Used) (6/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Eviscerate On Enemy (Enemy At 8) (5/10 Mana Used) (7/9 Cards Drawn)
Play Gallywix Coin (4/10 Mana Used) (8/9 Cards Drawn)
From Here There Are 3 Scenarios Possible
Scenario A: BEST (Oil & Flurry Drawn)
Play Oil (7/10 Mana Used) (All Cards Drawn)
Play Farseer (10/10 Mana Used) (You At 4)
Play Gallywix Coin (9/10 Mana Used) (You At 3)
Play Blade Flurry (10/10 Mana Used) (You At 1) (Enemy At 2)
Attack With Apprentice (Enemy At -1)
Scenario B: GOOD (Oil Drawn, Flurry Missing)
Play Oil (7/10 Mana Used) (All Cards Drawn)
Play Farseer (10/10 Mana Used)(You At 4)
Play Gallywix Coin (9/10 Mana Used) (You At 3)
Play Blade Flurry (10/10 Mana Used) (You At 1) (Enemy At 2)
Attack With Apprentice (Enemy At -1)
Scenario C: BAD (Flurry Drawn, Oil Missing)
Play Farseer (7/10 Mana Used) (You At 4)
Attack Nullifier With Dagger (You At 2)
Play Blade Flurry (8/10 Mana Used) (Enemy At 5) (All Cards Drawn)
Attack Enemy With Apprentice (Enemy At 2)
Play Gallywix Coin (7/10 Mana Used) (You At 1)
Play SI:7 On Enemy (10/10 Mana Used) (Enemy At 0)
Can you beat the Extra Challenge?
1. Play Gadgetzan
2. Sap Nullifier
3. Backstab Annoy-o-tron
4. Play deadly Poison
5. Eviscerate to face. Opponent Health: 8
You have 2 mana, 4 coins and have drawn 4 cards
6. Play the 4 coins to draw 4 more cards. You now have 6 mana
A. If you drew Blade Flurry:
7. Attack face. Opponent Health: 5
8. Apprentice to face. Opponent Health: 2
9. Blade Flurry. Draw last card. Opponent Health: 0
B. If you drew Oil
7. Play Oil. Draw last card
8. Attack face. Opponent Health: 2
9. Apprentice to face. Opponent Health: 0
Can’t sap nullifier, he cannot be targeted by spells.
Oops. Forgot about the nullifier.
1. Play Gadgetzan
2. Sap Annoy-o-tron
3. Backstab Nullifier
4. Apprentice into Nullifiier
4. Play deadly Poison
5. Eviscerate to face. Opponent Health: 8
You have 2 mana, 4 coins and have drawn 4 cards
6. Play the 4 coins to draw 4 more cards. You now have 6 mana
A. If you drew Blade Flurry & Deckhand:
7. Attack face. Opponent Health: 5
8. Play Deckhand
9. Deckhand to face. Opponent Health: 3
10. Blade Flurry. Draw last card. Opponent Health: 0
B. If you drew Oil & Deckhand
7. Play Deckhand
7. Play Oil. Draw last card
8. Attack face. Opponent Health: 2
9. Deckhand to face. Opponent Health: 0
C. If you drew Oil & Blade Flurry
7. Play Oil. Draw last card.
8. Attack face. Opponent Health: 2
9. Blade Flurry. Opponent Health: 0
You can’t backstab arcane nullifier either… You can’t target spells on him.
I wanted to get to this earlier, but it’s been a very busy week! The basic challenge has been well covered so I will go for the EXTRA SUPER BONUS CHALLENGE! Alright Dannie, you ready for this? The most important rule of the EXTRA SUPER BONUS CHALLENGE is the same as the basic one: Can you win “regardless of the order in which you draw things”? In other words, can you win no matter what, if RNG is the absolute WORST it could ever be?
Let’s start by looking at the cards we already have and what they can do to the enemy Rogue. Deadly Poison puts our weapon up to 3. Eviscerate does 4 damage. Backstab and Sap do nothing directly to the hero. The Apprentice has an attack of 3. IF there were no minions, we could do 10 damage. That is obviously not enough. In order to win, we MUST draw cards. So let’s look at the cards we can draw. Dr. Boom, Loatheb, VanCleef, 2x Violet Teacher and the Piloted Shredder do not help at all. They will not have a chance to attack, they do not affect the enemy’s HP or minions, they do not buff our minions. They are very nice cards, but utterly pointless here. The best you could hope for is to play Dr. Boom and Backstab a Bomb Bot, but you’ll never have enough mana to play Dr. Boom so that’s out. That leaves us with the Deckhand, Oil and Blade Flurry that can actually help us.
What is the simplest way we could win, assuming good draws? Play the Auctioneer, Eviscerate the enemy Rogue, play Deadly Poison, play one Coin, play the Oil, Blade Flurry to clear the board and attack face with the Apprentice. 13 damage. We aren’t allowed to have good draws though, we have BAD draws. Therefore, of our 9 cards in the deck, we must draw the 6 useless ones first so we have to draw 7 total before we gain a useful card. This actually limits us quite a bit. We must lead with the Auctioneer. We then have four spells we can play, each of which will give us a Coin for a total of four. Even if we play each Coin as we get it, we still have to play our four spells before we get that 7th draw, which is a useful card.
Pause here for a moment to discuss the implications of no Farseer and no SI:7 Agent. The Farseer previously allowed us to heal which gave us the option of attacking minions with our weapon or surviving a Fatigue draw. We can no longer do either. We have 1 HP, we can not attack and kill the Nullifier ourselves, or we die. We can not draw a single Fatigue or we die. We need to be very careful with our spells. This leads to the question of “can we get rid of the Auctioneer after we are done drawing?” Alas, no. The only cards we have that can remove the Auctioneer are Backstab and Eviscerate. Backstab was enough with the Agent, but the Agent is gone, so only Eviscerate is enough. If we save Eviscerate as long as we can, it will be our 7th spell played. (Deadly Poison, Sap, Backstab, 3xCoin.) If we use it to kill the Auctioneer, then we will only draw 7 cards. Given the “worst RNG” rule, that leaves two of our good cards in the deck. Is ONE of our three useful cards enough to win, especially since we just took 4 damage away from the enemy to use on our Auctioneer? No. It’s not. The Auctioneer must live, it can’t be removed.
A note on the Nullifier: It is immune to spells. We can’t use Sap, Eviscerate or Backstab on it. We can’t attack it ourself, we don’t have the health. Only minions or Blade Flurry can take it out. Also a note on the Yeti: If we kill it, we get a Spare Part. This is irrelevant. We already have enough spells to draw the cards we need. Would some of the Parts be useful? Yes, but we must follow the “any sequence of draws/WORST RNG” rule. Assume the Spare Part will be useless, like a Cloak Field. There is no benefit.
This brings us back to the situation. Here is our best play order: Play the Auctioneer. Play Deadly Poison. Sap the Annoy-o-Tron. Eviscerate the enemy face for 4 damage. Backstab the Bloodmage. Play 3 Coins. Yes, Backstab Thalnos. It’s not explicitly said how many cards our opponent has left, but that deck looks small so it might be one. If it is, then that gives us a chance to force our enemy to draw one Fatigue card! Other than Thalnos, we have no other way of making our enemy draw. Gallywix will easily fill his hand up, but burning cards doesn’t cause Fatigue damage, only drawing them. The only draws are Thalnos and the start of the enemy’s turn, so 1 Fatigue damage only. Assuming that Fatigue damage, our enemy is essentially at 7 HP now. We have spent 8 mana and gained 3 for a total of 5 left.
That was all set-up, here is the real part we have been getting to. There is no better way to play our first 7 cards. The question is what do we do NOW. If we are trying to win with ANY possible draw, that means one option has the Oil as our 9th draw, while another option has the Blade Flurry at the 9th spot. If either of those spells is our 9th card, we can NOT play it. We have drawn the full deck, we can’t play a spell at that point or we die. Can we win with just TWO of our three cards? We already know we can win if we draw the Oil at 7 and the Flurry at 8. That leaves 3 options: A) Flurry at 7 and Oil at 8. B) Flurry last. C) Oil last. For B and C, it doesn’t matter if we draw the Deckhand first or not. We can use our fourth Coin to draw the 8th card. Our 9th card is drawn when we play the spell we got, Oil or Flurry. Let’s run through it. Remember, our opponent is at 7HP, we have 5 mana and a Coin we haven’t used yet. Oh, and that +3 to a minion from the Oil? Given our assumption of WORST RNG, that +3 will always hit the Auctioneer and be wasted. Alas!
A) 7th draw is Blade Flurry
Play Blade Flurry. This deals 3 damage to the enemy, leaving 4 HP. It also deals 3 to the Nullifier, leaving 2 HP. 8th card drawn is the Oil. (If it’s the Deckhand, see option B.)
Play the Oil…wait we can’t. We don’t have a weapon any more. Oil and equipping a new weapon costs 5 mana, but we used 1 on Blade Flurry. We only have 4. We have a Coin! Except…if we play it, that draws our 9th card and we can’t play the Oil or we die to Fatigue!
Play the Coin anyway. This draws the Deckhand. Use 2 mana to equip a weapon. Use 2 more to play the Deckhand and run it into the Nullfier, killing it. Attack face with the 1 damage Wicked Dagger and the 3 damage Apprentice.
4(Evis) + 3(DP+Flurry) + 3(Apprentice) + 1(Dagger attack) + 1(Fatigue) is 12! We win! …if the enemy Rogue only has one card left. If there is more than 1 in that deck, we lose.
B) 7th draw is Deckhand. We use our Coin. 8th Draw is Blade Flurry.
This is actually the same option A! We have 6 mana, have already used the Fourth Coin. Play Blade Flurry, equip a new Dagger, play Deckhand, kill the Nullifier with the Deckhand, go face with the Dagger and Apprentice. Same win condition.
C) 7th draw is Deckhand. We use our Coin. 8th Draw is Oil.
No Coins left, the only way to get the Blade Flurry is to play the Oil, but then we can’t Flurry. We can only use the Oil and the Deckhand. Still can’t attack the Nullifier ourself. Still have to assume the +3 from the Oil hits the Auctioneer. What can we do?
Play the Deckhand.
Play the Oil. Our weapon is now at 6.
Attack the Nullifier with the Deckhand and Apprentice.
Attack face for 6.
4(Evis) + 6(Dagger, Poison, Oil) + 1(Fatigue) is 11…not enough. We can’t win if Blade Flurry is our last card. SO close, so very close, but it can’t be done.
D) If the 7th draw was the Oil, then the Deckhand, we are back at C and lose. If we get Oil then Blade Flurry then we have the easy win we mentioned earlier.
This was way too ridiculously long, but that’s the end. There is one sequence of draws that we are unable to beat. Our RNG is probably going to be better than that, so we are likely to win in this situation, but there is that slim chance of failure. This was a fun exercise, even if it didn’t quite work out!
Did I miss something? Is there a hole in my logic somewhere? Or was that always the plan, that it can’t actually be done?
It can be done, there’s a factor that nobody has considered yet. Take a deep look at your enemy board and what all the minions do.
Hmm. I don’t see it. The enemy has an Arcane Nullifier, an Annoy-o-Tron, a Mechanical Yeti, Trade Prince Gallywix and Bloodmage Thalnos. The Nullifier is immune to spells and has taunt. The Annoy-o-Tron has taunt. There’s nothing else special about them. No Deathrattles, no effects that proc on anything. They’re not going to do any damage to the enemy.
Gallywix will fill our opponent’s hand, but that doesn’t matter. Same with the Spare Part the Yeti gives. We will cast at least 5 spells and since the enemy has 6 cards already, their hand will fill up and that 5th one will be burned. It doesn’t matter how many cards are burned this way, burnt cards don’t cause damage. The Spare Parts themselves don’t matter either. None of them will help us with option C anyway.
Last minion is Thalnos. His Spell Power would be very nice on our side, but we don’t have any way to Mind Control or copy him. We could use Sap on him as our 4th card, but that’s no different than killing him with Backstab. Either way only procs one draw. That one draw plus the one the Rogue gets at the start of the their turn is only one Fatigue draw, which I already factored in.
I only saw the Fatigue from Thalnos today! I hadn’t noticed it before, so maybe I’m still missing something. Buggered if I can tell though. I don’t see any more interactions with those minions. I look forward to the final solution. 🙂
Took a little coaxing from Dannie, but I did finally figure it out! It’s crazy, but amazing.
Play Gadgetzan.
Play Deadly Poison.
Backstab Thalnos.
Sap the Yeti.
At this point, we’ve played three spells, putting them in our enemy’s hand. We also killed Thalnos, causing a draw so our opponent now has a full hand. The copy of Sap goes into their hand before the Yeti does. The Yeti is card 11, so it is burnt. Since it came from the board, its Deathrattle activates giving us a Spare Part. Doesn’t matter which one. Use Cloak on whatever, Freeze anything, buff attack or HP on any of our minions (or even Gallywix), use the Reversing Switch on the Annoy-o-Tron or Auctioneer or Gallywix, put Taunt on anything.
If we got the Time Rewinder, use Eviscerate on our enemy’s face.
If we got anything else, play the Spare Part.
Play the four Coins we have. That’s eight draws.
Use Eviscerate or Time Rewinder on our Auctioneer. The draw goes off first, then the Gadget dies/returns to hand. That’s 9. (Actually, he gets burnt because we got a Coin too, we now have 10 cards in hand.) The rest is the same regardless of Eviscerate or Rewinder.
Gadgetzan Auctioneer is now dead, which I didn’t think possible. We can cast all remaining spells freely with no fear of Fatigue.
Play Coin. We are now at 7 mana. (Spent 6 on Auctioneer, spent 1 on Sap, 1 on Eviscerate, Spare Parts are all free due to Apprentice, got 5 mana from Coins.)
Play Deckhand, charge into Annoy-o-Tron. Both die.
Play Oil, Apprentice is the only minion so she gets the +3!
Leaves us with 2 mana. Play the Coin from the Oil for kicks, but unneeded.
Kill the Nullifier with the Apprentice who now has 6 attack.
Attack face with our weapon for 6 damage. (Enemy is at 2 if we got the Reversing Switch, 6 if we didn’t.)
Blade Flurry for 6 damage and the win!
Great puzzle, Dannie! Thanks for the vague coaching, but for letting me figure it out myself in the end. 🙂
Holy freaking crap! I did the same analysis and came up with everything you had done in your first post, and I knew the Spare Part had to factor in somehow so I could evis my auctioneer and then still draw all 9. But I never thought about (actually didn’t know the mechanics) sapping a yeti to burn it counts as a death, thus drawing the part! Nicely done!