Secrets might be the most annoying cards inHearthstone. They make your decisions much trickier, even if you have a pretty good idea of what the Secret is. And against decks that run multiple secrets, or that have ways to generate them, you are often forced to guess, and hope you don’t get wrecked by choosing the wrong option.
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In the early days, Secrets only existed in Mage, Paladin, and Hunter, and have been staples in dominant decks like Freeze Mage and Secret Paladin. They have also seen frequent play sprinkled into a variety of decks when they are strong enough, especially once they started appearing in Rogue. Whether Secrets are in a relatively weak state or not, some are still strong enough that you might consider including them in your next Standard deck.
10Emergency Maneuvers
Emergency Maneuvers is a relatively easy Secret to set up. You just need a minion powerful enough that your opponent feels forced to kill it, but suddenly find they can’t because you are protecting it with Emergency Maneuvers. It turns your “must-kill” minion into a “can’t-kill” minion.
And the secret isn’t bad on other minions either, especially if they have a useful keyword likeRushorDeathrattle. Of course, this strategy doesn’t work if your opponent is playing an aggressive enough deck that they can simply ignore whatever minion you are trying to duplicate.
9Motion Denied
You probably don’t need to be told this, but six damage for two mana is a lot. If all you care about is dealing damage to your opponent’s face, Motion Denied does so with extreme efficiency. Another factor working in the Secret’s favor is that it’s a newer card, and one that doesn’t see regular play in the Standard Meta. As a result, you can catch people off guard, since they won’t remember to play around it.
However, Motion Denied doesn’t affect minion combat in any way, so if you’re playing a deck that actually wants to compete on the board, it won’t do you any good.
8Ice Barrier
Ice Barrier is the sort of card that seems underwhelming at a glance, but can be surprisingly effective if the correct situation arises. It’s true that eight armor isn’t going to make much of a difference in certain matchups.
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However, it can be exactly what you need againstaggro decks, or against combo and burn decks that have a limit on the amount of damage they can deal. In those scenarios, Ice Barrier can give you just enough of a cushion to turn the game around.
7Ice Trap
The ability to stop an opponent’s spell, even for just a turn, is a powerful one. And sometimes, Ice Trap is better than that, as the difference in mana can make it so the spell is no longer mana efficient to play, effectively nullifying it entirely.
Even the cheapest spells are painful to have countered, so if you have an expensive spell that you really need to play, Ice Trap can totally derail your gameplan. That said, it is difficult to rank Ice Trap too much higher on this list, as there is another Secret that outclasses it.
6Freezing Trap
In a way, all Secrets are designed to slow down your opponents by making them play suboptimally. But Freezing Trap is a stall card in its purest form. Returning a minion to your opponent’s hand is not quite as good as killing it outright, but the mana increase often means it has the same effect.
Decks that run a lot of small minions will be able to play around Freezing Trap relatively easily (assuming they’ve managed to figure out what it is), but others will be forced to send a powerful minion back to their hand, slowing down their aggression significantly.
5Perjury
Perjury is a tricky card to evaluate. The Secrets on this list are all decent options to get from its effect, but there are plenty of Secrets in the pool that aren’t worth the two mana you spent on Perjury. That is especially true of Paladin secrets, which cost one mana to play and generally aren’t even worth that much.
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However, there are a couple of factors that make Perjury better than it seems. First of all, getting a Mage secret from Perjury allows you to play those cards at a one-mana discount, which is great if you’re lucky enough to get one as an option. Second, there is a lot to be said for versatility. Perjury lets you tailor your Secrets to the situation, even if Discover means your options are limited.
4Explosive Trap
In a vacuum, Explosive Trap wouldn’t rank so highly on this list. However, it happens to be one of the only board clears for Hunter, making it extremely valuable to the class. And it’s not as though the card is terrible; two damage isn’t going to have much of an effect against larger boards, but in the early game and against decks running a lot of low-health minions, it can be game-winning.
Thanks to its potentially devastating effect, Explosive Trap will usually be the first Secret your opponent tests for, although knowing it exists and being able to play around it successfully are completely different things. In some scenarios, Explosive Trap can even scare them out of attacking entirely.
3Counterspell
You know what’s better than sometimes countering your opponent’s spells? Literally countering them. Counterspell is basically a more powerful version of Ice Trap, stopping enemy spells permanently, rather than sending it back to their hand.
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With Ice Trap, your opponent can waste a turn on a spell if absolutely necessary, then play it again later at a higher cost. Counterspell doesn’t even give them that option, and if they really need to play a specific spell, it amounts to paying three mana to completely shut down their gameplan.
2Objection
Objection! is one of the newest Secrets in Hearthstone, and it’s no slouch. You know that big, impactful minion your opponent wanted to play? Well, now it’s gone. No minion for them. Countering minions will often be better than spells, since almost every deck will have some cheap spell they can throw away, especially when they get the Coin in their opening hand half the time.
That said, how effective Objection! is will range dramatically depending on which minions your opponent has at their disposal. However, even in the worst-case scenario — if they play a zero-cost minion for some reason — still costs them a card. And at its best, it can cause them to waste an entire turn.
1Double Cross
Many of Hearthstone’s Secrets force your opponent to be inefficient with their mana. Double Cross does so directly by punishing them for spending it. And since spending mana is necessary for most decks, it is often better for your opponent to bite the bullet and give you the cards than to hamstring their own gameplan.
In that case, you have spent two mana to draw two cards. Even with the delay, that’s a great deal. It’s worth noting, though, that Double Cross will generally be worse in the late game, where your opponent has more mana to work with.
