What would you do?

[Deleted]

You are playing Ramp Druid against a Frost Mage. Turn 9, the mage plays Alexstrasza and you are down to 15 life with 2 armor. The mage still has 17 cards in his deck and has not used any Frostbolt/Icelance or Fireball, he is holding 5 cards. The mage has 19 health and 1 secret (Iceblock) in play. You have a Dr. Boom along 2 bombs on your side of the board and the mage only has Alex. You have 9 mana and the following cards in your hand:

- Ancient of Lore
- Big Game Hunter
- Sludge Belcher
- Shade of Naxxramas
- Sen'jin Shieldmasta
- Sylvannas

Do you:

A- Use Dr. Boom + 1 bomb to kill Alex, play Ancient of Lore to heal yourself and use hero power

B- Use Big Game Hunter on Alex and play Sludge Belcher/Sylvannas

C- Use Big Game Hunter on Alex and play Sen'jin Shieldmasta and use hero power

D- Something else

What would you do?

[Fibby76]

Given he is likely to have frostbolt/ice lance/fireball to finish you off at 15 life, i would try to get heals up asap. The taunts wouldn't help against that, so shieldmasta, sylvannas, sludge belcher would be useless here. The logical thing to do is finish off his alex with your minions and then use mana to cast ancient of lore. Since i would have three mana left, i'd put down shade of naxx.

[Deleted]

Given he is likely to have frostbolt/ice lance/fireball to finish you off at 15 life, i would try to get heals up asap. The taunts wouldn't help against that, so shieldmasta, sylvannas, sludge belcher would be useless here. The logical thing to do is finish off his alex with your minions and then use mana to cast ancient of lore. Since i would have three mana left, i'd put down shade of naxx.

Druid only has 9 mana, so after Ancient of Lore he could only use hero power.

[mrgreenthump]

At 18 you are sort of safe(only double Ice Lance, Frostbolt, fireball, heropower kills you.. and with him having so many cards left in deck, it's quite unlikely) after Alex is dead, so would probably push for damage with BGH+Sen'jin+hero power to proc the iceblock next turn.

Plus as a side bonus he does freeze + doomsayer.. getting him as low as possible is good, cause your bombs can kill through Ice Block as Doomsayer procs on start of his turn when secrets don't work.

The ultimate safest way would be Heal for 5, but it just gives your opponent more time to get his other win conditions.

[Nikkaszal]

Trading with Boom + Bomb and following with AoLore + Hero Power is the only option. You have to expect that he's going YOLO with FB(3) FB(6) IL(10) IL(14) Fball(20) with 5 cards in hand and this is the only way to push you into safe health. If it turns out he didn't have that combo and was throwing out Alex for the hell of it, you've got Senjin + Belcher in hand for next turn plus whatever you draw, as well as a body on board.

On the other hand, if you wanna risk a bit then BGH + Senjin + Hero Power is far more efficient and leaves you in a MUCH better board position, and while it leaves you open to the potential nuke burst you can probably get away with it when he still has half his deck left. Plus BGH is usually wasted if you don't use it for Alex against a mage.

Mmm... yeah I would probably go the risker option 2 there actually

- - - Updated - - -

PS how did this game actually turn out? I need to know! =D

[Deleted]

Don't use dr boom. He has 19 health you have 15. The chances of him having lethal aren't too big with 19 cards left and you will need your dr boom to make him use mana on him or to wear him down fast enough. Play BGH and the minion with highest attack (being sylvanas). Then you hit him for 9 in the face with dr boom and bombs.

It's a chance you have to take. That 5 health might look good on paper but you lose out on too much damage which is sorely needed in your situation. The 5 health extra gives him more stall which you can't afford to give him.

[Deleted]

PS how did this game actually turn out? I need to know! =D

I will post how this game turned out in a few days (I didn't add the result in the original post to avoid influencing other people's decisions).

[Deleted]

The correct play is Sylvanas+BGH even if the mage killed the druid the next turn.

[FobManX]

Even if the Mage has that many cards in hand and left in deck, it's pretty likely that he'll have enough to burn you down once he plays Alex. The best play would be Ancient of Lore to heal and then hero power. You still have board presence and you push yourself out of lethal range. Frost mage only has a certain amount of burn. If you use your Lores to heal up you should be able to play it safe and win.

[Mormolyce]

I went with (2), (1) is safer but the odds of him having the perfect combo in hand aren't high and I tend to play romantically.

[Deleted]

Even if the Mage has that many cards in hand and left in deck, it's pretty likely that he'll have enough to burn you down once he plays Alex. The best play would be Ancient of Lore to heal and then hero power. You still have board presence and you push yourself out of lethal range. Frost mage only has a certain amount of burn. If you use your Lores to heal up you should be able to play it safe and win.

Playing Alex on turn 9(when you already have iceblock up and you are in no immediate risk) is a mage dream, it doesn't mean you have lethal in hand. You have way more burn than the Druid can heal, plus you already dealt up to 15 dmg with Alex...

I played the matchup often.Its already pretty messed up for the druid(because he missed his ramp) but look at it like this. Your board presence is a 5/5 AoL and a Boombot. You aren't procing that Iceblock for at least 3 more turns(assuming the freeze mage does nothing to the board). The mage can draw Pyroblast in the next 3 turns, and all your healing effort would go to waste(while being no closer to procing the Iceblock).

[Velerios]

The correct play is Sylvanas+BGH even if the mage killed the druid the next turn.

How should he do BGH+Sylvanas when he only has 9 mana.

No, the correct way is to push forward: if he has lethal next turn, it is over, but to destroy your board only to heal with ancient of lore is stupid. He may only had alexstrasza as useable hand and hopes that you do the wrong thing and trade your dr. Boom with alex. It is a dream-turn and hopes that you panic and do the wrong thing. He has 17 cards in his deck and he should have until then exactly the combo that burns you down... the chances are too low. If he did, lucky, but it's better to increase your chance to winning then to decrease your chance to losing at this point. 15 Life+3 armor is high enough. Pushing 5 more life for 8 less damage done is not worth it.

[Mormolyce]

How should he do BGH+Sylvanas when he only has 9 mana.

Isn't that 3+6 mana?

[LilSaihah]

Sludge and shade and go face.

[Mormolyce]

Come on, tell us already! I need instant gratification!

[Nikkaszal]

Sludge and shade and go face.

Good God no, especially with Ice Block up all it'll take is one poly for the mage to get 8 free face damage from his Alex before nuking the fuck out of you at his leisure.

5 cards in hand, way too risky. Alex has to be answered.

[Mormolyce]

Good God no, especially with Ice Block up all it'll take is one poly for the mage to get 8 free face damage from his Alex before nuking the fuck out of you at his leisure.

5 cards in hand, way too risky. Alex has to be answered.

Mmmm, it's not my favourite play but if she had Poly wouldn't she have used it on Dr Balanced last turn? Though of course she might topdeck it.

[Nikkaszal]

Mmmm, it's not my favourite play but if she had Poly wouldn't she have used it on Dr Balanced last turn? Though of course she might topdeck it.

Neh, if I had Alex and Poly vs a Boom against a druid with full HP with only half the game gone, I'd Alex first to get the 15 damage and have the option of getting rid of Boom with a trade.

[Deleted]

I thought about option A,B and C at the time. A would obviously had been the safest option since with 20 life and 3 armor there was no way he would have been able to kill me next turn, however I would be sacrificing my board and 8 free damage to the mage in a match I would have to win in the next few turns since I was already on a clock from the mage having played Alex on turn 9 and having an Ice Block up.

I thought that even if I had gone with option A I wouldn't be able to win the game in the long run. My idea was to push for damage, make use of the BGH on the only target he could hit and hope the mage didn't have the perfect combo in his 5 card hand, which would be something improbable given that he still had 17 cards in his deck. He also had been getting pretty much everything when he needed (Mad Scientist on turn 2, both Acolytes on turn 3 and 5, along with both Loot hoarders on turn 4 and Cone of Cold+Doomsayer when I already had a large board) so I thought "what are the chances he has the perfect combo after a turn 9 Alex?".

Then I was left with option B or C and I decided to go with B because that would give me a body that could survive Flamestrike (at least force the mage to waste hero power on Belcher to kill it and prevent Dr. Boom from dying from a Frostbolt). I didn't choose option C because having 1 additional health wouldn't save me from the things that could kill me at 17 health and with B I would always have something on the board no matter what happened next turn.

In the end the mage had in fact the entire combo in his 5 card hand: Bloodmage Thalnos+1 Frostbolt+2x Icelance+Fireball. I still feel I made the right call and if he didn't have exactly that combo I would be in a good spot next turn after healing with the ancient.

[Nikkaszal]

All that hypothesising and I completely failed to take into account a Thalnos/Kobold =(

Bad luck man. Thanks for the ponder!