Quote From Pezman

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! Any thoughts on Whizbang? She has the dust...

Great card to get to play with cards you don't have, but if she enjoys the "deckbuilding" aspect of the game, that won't do anything for her.

Quote From MisterKnott

I think the answer to the original scenario then is found above: Zephrys is "too" hard coded to offer lethal, since Swipe, Fireball, and Eviscerate are all literally different flavors of the same thing. (Beyond which, the OP mentioned that this happened twice, so it's actually SIX flavors of the same thing.) If the point of the "Discover" mechanic is meant to be variety, the AI should only offer one of those options, and then provide two other cards for some other scenario that the human player might anticipate but that Zephrys doesn't know.

If others are willing to look beyond the OP's framing to the broader question, I would be interested in what other scenarios people have seen go awry. One thing I've noticed in playing against Zephrys is what seems like a fairly limited card pool. If I'm a turn away from lethal, my opponent almost always plays Tirion Fordring the same turn as Zephrys. But one thing that the AI clearly doesn't weigh -- but that the human player should -- is that I'm playing Rogue, so have numerous ways to get Tirion out of the way or to ping off his Divine Shield. Sap? Game over. Fan of Knives, Lackeys, SI:7 Agent, whatever. So I'd say there were two separate problems that the Tirion scenario draws out:

1) Lack of awareness of opponent's class identity. The AI doesn't need to know exactly what cards I'm holding to know whether I'm more or less likely to have answers based purely on the spells available to my class (in Standard at least).

2) General lack of options. Like I said, Tirion is produced literally every time. But objectively, even something like Khartut Defender might be a better option if you're a turn away from certain death. (I mean, even  in the OP's scenario, if the other player was at 1 HP, why even offer Swipe, Fireball, and Eviscerate? Why not Shiv?)

It can't offer you Khartut Defender because that's not a basic/classic card.

I played him in wild at 6 mana, leaving myself 4 available trying to get a Mass Dispel, Silence or Hex to deal with the Deathlord that I didn't want to pull my Shudderwock. I don't remember the options, but none of them even dealt with the Deathlord at all. 

It seems deathrattles aren't considered in the AI. 

I could go for a riot, sounds like a good time.

I started playing before WotOG and didn't get a golden legendary until Ungoro. I didn't know there was a golden legendary pity timer, I thought goldens were just luck. Just basic legendary pity timer is 40 packs. 

You can always run the budget Mech Hunter from RoS, it is still competitive. 

Why do I get the feeling that Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is never going to get nerfed? I feel we are going to get the "we need more data" treatment until he rotates. 

Quest shaman actually kinda sucks. Pretty sure the quest will get dropped soon and shaman will be all murlocs, or aggro token.

Bomb warriors disappeared. I thought with Highlander returning, warriors would still run bombs. But instead they're just running more broken crap to bring their boring board clearing control deck to the max.

Priest still sucks (not truly surprised, but figured there might be one deck that shined)

 Not surprised by much else. Becoming pretty disappointed with how the meta is shaping up. Hopefully some new powerful decks emerge soon to start shaking things up. 

This year the classes are split into 2 types

"Heroes" - Mage, Hunter, Paladin & Druid

"Villians" - Warrior, Shaman, Rogue, Priest & Warlock

Each group has received separate support in each xpac

RoS

Heroes - Twinspell

Villians - Lackeys

SoU

Heroes - Highlander

Villians - Plagues

Since xpacs are developed in advance, it is safe to assume blizz knew how useful Twinspells would be in the highlander playstyle that they had planned for the hero classes. 

Enjoying Highlander Hunter, that's about it. All the classes I want to focus on getting golden I can't find a solid enough deck for playing ladder. All shaman decks feel subpar, and I don't want to play Murlocs anymore. Paladin I don't have the quest, I don't like the new murloc deck, and I already have golden paladin. Rogue feels like trash this xpac. Warlock is just zoo as always, and now the meta is settling, its winrate is dropping, Priest is meme status still, and I hate Mage and Warrior.

Fuck mage, fuck warrior, fuck what this xpac is turning the meta into. I think I might need a break from this game for a while. Every deck is pissing me off, and I’m not enjoying this meta at all. 

Fuck streamers and everyone who copies their decks.

Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

Watch the Duck Tales reboot

not really related to your tastes, but it's the best thing Disney has produced in the last couple years

Plus David Tennant is perfect as Scrooge McDuck

That's fair. I'm sure there's many situations that Vulpera would be better. In testing Storm Chaser, it has already won me 4 matches that I otherwise would have lost. Vulpera seems to have too many chances of bad Shaman spells for my taste. For example, one time I played her, my options were Ancestral Healing, Beakered Lightning and Totemic Might. I went with the mystery choice hoping for the Bloodlust I needed to win, and got Totemic Surge.

It's definitely a slot in the deck that people can swap for either option depending on their own personal preference. Great deck though! This is the most fun Shaman deck I've played this xpac so far. 

Quote From Zwane

Also had an interesting game against a rogue who had just put 8 copies of Zephrys the Great in his deck after he already used it twice using a Shadowstep. Still managed to win using some big boys on the board though.

Putting 8 copies of a card that has a singleton requirement seems like a bad idea..

After playing a bunch of matches, I'm thinking of replacing Vulpera Scoundrel with Storm Chaser. Too many times I would have had lethal if I had just drawn a Bloodlust, but they are both stuck at the bottom of my deck. Vulpera was never useful in any of my matches, and gave me really bad choices, and mystery choice was always really bad too. Storm Chaser I feel would be a more consistent option compared to praying to RNGesus. Just my two cents, take it or leave it. I'll test it out and let you know how it goes. 

Ok Blizzard, when will you get it through your thick skulls that it is long past time for fucking Dr. Boom, Mad Genius to get nerfed?

I like the idea of beating big priest with a taste of their own medicine. Will have to try for sure!

I have made 2 versions of 2 Quests Priest. Tried both of them, and they're actually better than I thought they would be. Could definitely still refinement. It's hard having both quests in your mulligan. I've been playing with keeping Awaken the Makers then depending on drawing or discovering Activate the Obelisk via [Hearthstone Card (Shadowvisions) Not Found], but I'm not sure if that's the best way to go about it. 

Some stand out cards after playing a few games

Bloodmage Thalnos - works great for completing Awaken the Makers, and helps with Activate the Obelisk when combined with Spirit Lash

Khartut Defender - gives you 2 towards Awaken the Makers or 6 towards Activate the Obelisk

I've been wanting to try running a double quest reno priest. Maybe I'll finally get around to trying that as I'm getting pretty bored with standard already. 

I think rotating a single expansion every time a new one releases would do a lot to help the meta feel new with each expansion. There should only be 4 sets active in standard at a time. 

If this were the case, Witchwood would have rotated when SoU dropped. Leaving BDP, RR, RoS and SoU.

Come next xpac, Boomsday would see the door, putting an end to this boring mech meta and allowing some other cards time to shine.

This would allow each xpac the same amount of time in standard as well. WW came out in April 2018, by the time it rotates, we will have been playing those cards for 2 years. Yet at the same time RR will rotate after only 1 year and 4 months.