Okay, so here's a little story to start off with. Yesterday, I was in a PvP match against a Death Jade wizard. He had 77 resist to all schools and massive heal boost and block rating. I was second, and was in the match for 45 minutes. He had an Exalted Life mastery amulet and had max Reshuffles in his sideboard with a Guardian Dragon pet that gave Energizing Battery, Spritely, Fairy Friend, 10% Spell-Proof, and 5% Spell-Defying. He constantly used Sanctuary and spammed Bad Juju while cloaking it. Now, I did get close to winning the match in the first 45 minutes, leaving him at less than 100 health, but his pet used Healing Current and healed him to max health. What he did was: Cloaked Bad Juju on me in the first turn, Death Trap, Bad Juju, Potent Death Trap, and he kept on stacking me up with traps. I shook them off quickly with constant Empowers and wand attacks and got him busy with my minion. I Reshuffle locked him multiple times but eventually he didn't need it because of Bad Juju + Cloak. I eventually just discarded all my cards and moved onto the next match because it wasn't worth the time. Now, I have 2 suggestions: Make Bad Juju not cloakable (I mean, it does damage to yourself, you shouldn't be able to Cloak it anyways), or I need tips on how to defeat these guys, because I honestly have no idea how.
But for now, I honestly think Bad Juju shouldn't be cloakable, just like how Savage Paw isn't cloakable but it adds a blade and does damage. I don't think adding a spell to remove all negative charms from yourself would work, because dispel and Infection stacking to stop heals wouldn't work and armor pierce would get way out of hand. So, who else agrees with me? And if you don't, please give me tips of defeating Jade+Cloaked Bad Juju spammers. I did everything I needed to do, but it simply didn't work. So if I'm missing something, let me know.
This is what I did: Discarded all forms of Weaknesses and did not cloak them. The only spells I cloaked in that match were Infections and Unbalance. I used Helpful Mander to stall him out and open a door for me to attack, but he used Colossal enchanted Leprechauns and killed them quickly. When he used Bad Juju, I used my wand attacks ASAP or discarded something and used Empower if I couldn't find a wand attack (always putting wands before Empowers to save cards). I discarded all my heals and Primordials as I didn't need to heal against somebody who tried for a OHKO. Every time he had several traps on me, I'd use Empower before he gained enough pips to hit or I Mana Burned. I only attacked when he was at one pip so I couldn't get a Bad Juju on me when I attacked. I used Doom and Gloom constantly but realized it was useless because of his Sanctuaries so I started only using Infections. I stacked cloaked Unbalances on him every time I felt he was running out of cards. I discarded all defenses. And most importantly, I never passed for one turn. So, if I really did something wrong, tell me what it was.
You have a very limited time frame with which to defeat this type of opponent. After the first reshuffle(as you know) he will have more bad jujus than you have wand spells and with no viable trained way for 5/7 schools to counter trap stack, you would eventually run out of tc empowers and he would win via trap stack-shatter. This is why I am such a firm advocate for a trap stack counter, As for bad juju countering, if you can catch him with his pants down so to speak after around the 7th juju before his reshuffle then you have an opportunity. I would use Dark Nova and constantly break any jujus being placed(by the seventh juju he should only have his tc jujus to rely on barring a reshuffle) with midnight sprite and then follow up with a savage paw. That should deal around 2k+ damage, as he would most likely want to heal I would then attempt a reshuffle lock with cloaked balance dispels. Another option is to cloak and multiply balance dispels in the initial 45 minutes and then make him a crown when you feel he is low on cards. I know you stated that you attempted to shuffle lock him but was that attempt made before or after his first shuffle? Another option is to try for a dark nova-shrike combo(i.e casting shrike while dark nova is out). Obviously this may take a few tries as it relies on gaining a shadow pip within Dark Nova's 3 round window but if you may be able to manage if you can keep his trap stack off and prevent a KO on you. I would try the nova-shrike combo only if you are clear of bad jujus and i would cast nova-midnight sprite or shrike-midnight sprite or shrike-savage paw. If you can keep the juju's at a max of one on you per turn then you won the match.
I think you make a good case for why juju shouldn't be cloakable. That dynamic more or less encourages an exploit that players are taking advantage of.
However, if the developers don't agree, then I think this post gets at another issue that might need addressing: why not create an optional time limit (e.g., 30 minutes)?
No Jade wizard wants to lose based on Diego's decision--that's why they're using Jade gear to begin with, to try to minimize the possibility of losing. That some players spam juju on top of this is distasteful, even if effective.
You can't cloak Savage Paw because it is an attack spell. You can, however, use Sharpened Blade or Colossal to boost its damage. Bad Juju is not an attack spell and thus can be cloaked.
You can't cloak Savage Paw because it is an attack spell. You can, however, use Sharpened Blade or Colossal to boost its damage. Bad Juju is not an attack spell and thus can be cloaked.
It decreases backlash with Shrike up, so therefore it technically is an attack because it deals damage and consumes blades and traps.
You have a very limited time frame with which to defeat this type of opponent. After the first reshuffle(as you know) he will have more bad jujus than you have wand spells and with no viable trained way for 5/7 schools to counter trap stack, you would eventually run out of tc empowers and he would win via trap stack-shatter. This is why I am such a firm advocate for a trap stack counter, As for bad juju countering, if you can catch him with his pants down so to speak after around the 7th juju before his reshuffle then you have an opportunity. I would use Dark Nova and constantly break any jujus being placed(by the seventh juju he should only have his tc jujus to rely on barring a reshuffle) with midnight sprite and then follow up with a savage paw. That should deal around 2k+ damage, as he would most likely want to heal I would then attempt a reshuffle lock with cloaked balance dispels. Another option is to cloak and multiply balance dispels in the initial 45 minutes and then make him a crown when you feel he is low on cards. I know you stated that you attempted to shuffle lock him but was that attempt made before or after his first shuffle? Another option is to try for a dark nova-shrike combo(i.e casting shrike while dark nova is out). Obviously this may take a few tries as it relies on gaining a shadow pip within Dark Nova's 3 round window but if you may be able to manage if you can keep his trap stack off and prevent a KO on you. I would try the nova-shrike combo only if you are clear of bad jujus and i would cast nova-midnight sprite or shrike-midnight sprite or shrike-savage paw. If you can keep the juju's at a max of one on you per turn then you won the match.
I Reshuffle locked him before his first Reshuffle but he shook them off with Weaknesses I think but I still Mana Burn locked him as well, but his pet countered by healing lots. I did use Doom and Gloom which caught him in his tracks but he eventually Reshuffled and used Sanctuary. Right after the Sanctuary, his pet used Fairy Friend and healed him up well. I did use Shrike but not Dark Nova (simply because it's too risky to put in my deck and he has Bad Juju to counter the hit anyways because I was second), but I did deal insane amounts of damage. When I used Shrike though, he was at 3 pips so he used Bad Juju but I was smart enough to wand that turn and next turn I used Savage Paw then Loremaster, but he still survived because of his pet constantly healing. I did Cloak multiple Unbalances but he was smart enough to keep normal Weakness cards in his hand so he shook them off as soon as possible. In the match, I never got above 2 Bad Jujus on me at a time (wand attacks and Scorpions helped a lot) and eventually into the match I even got a Feint in then used Empower when he was at 3 pips while I had Shrike up and used Judgement, which was when I had him at less than 100 health and was about to Scorpion but his pet used Healing Current and got him back to full.
Now, in my opinion, I did everything right but I think his pet was the only thing that got me.
