"Whenever you play a spell..."

[Verain]

Yesterday I was playing my mage deck, versus another mage deck. I had the mana wyrm out. He had a secret out that I was pretty sure was counterspell. I played my least valuable spell, and the counterspell secret sure enough popped out and countered it.

My mana wyrm did NOT trigger on this played spell, presumably because it was countered.


The very next game, an opponent played Gadgetzan Auctioneer. I damaged him, but couldn't kill him that round, but I had a counterspell. The opponent played a spell. He drew a card, and then the spell was countered.


What the fuck?


How do these triggers work?




Theories:

1- Each card has a different inbuilt priority. For instance, Auctioneer is super broken and some dev wuvs him too much, so he's top priority, and Mana Wyrm is lower, and Counterspell is somewhere in the middle. If this was the case, we would expect a deck with Illidan, Mana Wyrm, Auctioneer, and Questing Adventurer to always have their effects triggered in the same order.

2- Each card has a priority based on when it was played. If this was the case, maybe the order of play of the counterspell versus the mana wyrm and auctioneer mattered.



Any ideas?

[Faesroll]

Secrets aren't spells, simple as that.

[Nanaboostme]

Secrets aren't spells, simple as that.

I thought they are spells when you lay them out, not when they are activated

[Thorim]

I thought they are spells when you lay them out, not when they are activated

Secrets are classed as spells when you play them, not when they trigger.

[Nanaboostme]

Secrets are classed as spells when you play them, not when they trigger.

lol i think thats the same thing i said

[Verain]

Secrets are spells.

However, I think SP misunderstood. I got the shit end of the stick in both cases.

PLAYER 1 plays a SPELL. PLAYER 2's counterspell triggers and COUNTERS the spell. PLAYER 1's "proc on spell" creature (Mana Wyrm) does NOT proc. NOOOOO proc.

PLAYER 1 plays a SPELL. PLAYER 2's counterspell triggers and COUNTERS the spell. PLAYER 1's "proc on spell" creature (Gadgetzan Auctioneer) DOES TOTALLY proc. FREE CARD PROC.


Do you see? In the first case, I was player 1, and I didn't get my +1 attack from playing a spell. "Interesting", I thought.

In the second case, I was player 2. My counterspell stopped his spell, but he still got the free card for playing a spell. "Bullshit", I thought.

So, like I said....


Either the cards have some built in order of operation (for instance, first auctioneer checks, then counterspell checks, then mana wyrm checks... where is Illidan?), OR the cards have a dynamic order of operation, based on either nothing fucking useful (random) or something predictable (timestamps, for instance).


Nothing here was EVER about a thing proccing on a secret being revealed.

[Nanaboostme]

"The Counterspelled spell is still cast successfully, but has no effect. Specifically, the in game tooltip for Counter reads "A card that is Countered has no effect." You can think of it like casting a "silenced spell", or more simply casting a spell with no card text.

This has a few consequences:

Counterspelling a spell does not prevent it from triggering a Rogue’s Combo effect for a second card. The spell is still considered cast and the card is still considered played.

Because the Counterspelled spell has no effect, any such spell with Overload effects (eg: Forked Lightning) does not happen either. The Overload effect is also negated by Counterspell.

The Gadgetzan Auctioneer will still provide a card for the caster of the Counterspelled spell, the Mana Wyrm will still gain an attack point, as do Archmage Antonidas, Violet Teacher, Mana Addict and Wild Pyromancer."

stole that from wowhead, but it contradicts what you say.