I used to work for a marketing company that serviced small and medium-sized businesses across America. It was a multi-billion dollar revenue company. The CEO was a true rags to riches story. He joined the company right after he got out of jail in his early 20s for a small drug charge and worked his way up over 20 years to eventually become the CEO of the company.
The CEO strongly believed that the success of the company did not come from the brilliant and intelligent minds that he hired for his executive team, but the hard work, sweat and tears of the infield sales reps, service reps (made sure the customer services where properly installed), collection reps (chased after customers who fell behind on their payments), and sales managers.
He would often say, without sales we don't have the revenue to pay your salaries
Without customer service customers will drop us faster then we can bill them
Without collection reps we'd lose too many accounts due to non-payment
And without sales managers to hold it all together we'd fall apart
And he had a rule
EVERY SINGLE EXECUTIVE team member would spend 1 full week of each quarter in the field with a Sales Manager, Customer Service Rep, Collections Rep, or Sales rep. In addition when they are in the field they are to SUBMIT to whoever they've been assigned too and they may not pull rank.
This rule applied to EVERYONE to include the CEO. I know this, cause the CEO personally road along with me for 5 days in the field. He was a legit cool guy (I got a story at the end about this)
So...apparently we had hired a new VP Of Marketing from a major brand that I'm sure everyone in this sub would know of. Anyway apparently the first time he went in the field the VP Of Marketing pulled rank on a sales manager and the sales manager reported this directly to the CEO.
A new quarter went by, and I got an email stating that the VP Of Marketing will be joining me in the field on such and such week. Ok cool, not the first time I had some higher up come out and ride with me.
But about an hour later I got a call from my CEO.
CEO: PJ the VP Of Marketing is going in the field with you
Me: Yes sir, I got the email...
CEO: PJ I picked you cause when I was in the field with you, you seemed like the kinda guy that wouldn't be bullied or let someone run all over you
Me: Ok, well thank you
CEO: This VP is new to the company, and the last time he went in the field he pulled rank. I've told him not to pull rank again, and if he does I want you to call me as soon as you can.
PJ: I understand
CEO: Thank you
The VP meets me up, honestly for the first two days everything was fine. However on the 3rd day I was meeting with an existing client. This client was a difficult to please customer, he would always say we weren't worth the money, but I knew we were cause I could see his results, and over the years this clients business had grown alot. Said client would beat us up over pricing I'd stand firm, give him a 3% price increase, and offer him upgrades on top he'd haggle me down to a 1.5% price increase and we'd sign the contract.
Now I told the VP what would happen, that it would be a long sales call, and a difficult high tense one. But to let me handle it, I've dealt with the client quite a bit and was well prepared.
Now this meeting with the client lasted 2 1/2 hours but I'll get to the point. The client wanted a discount and was threatening to go to our competitor, he wouldn't. That's when the VP spoke up and said "I'm the VP and I'll personally give you a 15% discount on your current plan if you agree to sign a 1 yr contract" the customer said "20%" the VP said "Spilt the difference 17.5% and we have a deal" they agreed I was mad as hell.
One thing to mention my commissions depended on me generating MORE REVENUE and this VP just fucked me over.
We get in my car, and I go "You pulled rank you shouldn't have done that" he said "I got the deal done" I said "Had you kept your mouth shut I'd have gotten more money, not given 20% back" he goes "We got the contract signed" I said "We gave away tens of thousands of dollars that we didn't need to" he goes "Look I'm the VP..."
I then called my CEO, he saw the name pop up on my cars bluetooth
CEO answered
CEO: PJ, how are you doing?
PJ: The VP pulled rank on me and gave my customer a 17.5% discount on his current plan right as I was about to close him for more money
CEO: That's not right, where is the VP?
PJ: Your on speaker, he can hear you
CEO: Excellent, hey VP
VP: Yes sir
CEO: Tell me what happend
VP: Told his side of the story, which he admitted the truth but also admitted to pulling rank and giving the customer a discount
CEO: Ok, thanks for your honesty. Your fired.
VP: Excuse me?
CEO: Your fired, you have a 1 yr probation clause your done you don't pull rank when in the field
VP: You can't do this
CEO: I just did, you are to get on a plane come back to your office and clean it out, PJ take Mr. VP back to his hotel and drop him off.
PJ: Sure, no problem
And for the next 20 minutes I had an awkward car ride back to my former VPs hotel.
Later in a all hands on meeting, the CEO made sure to talk about how if an executive is in the field and pulls rank its a firable offense for the executive and he wants all the sales reps, sales managers, customer service reps, and collection reps to know that.
Side Story on this CEO
The company had a data plan, which gave us 4G on our Ipads, Phones, and Laptops. Well the company changed the service plan, and our data plan went down to ONLY our phones and we had to hotspot off that. They said this move would save us $80,000 a month (we had like 4,000~ employees in the field)
Well 2 months later we had a conference (we had 3 conferences a year) and after the conference, everyone went to the hotel bar. That's when I approached my CEO with another sales rep and talked to him about how much of a PITA it was to hotspot all our devices and how much it drained our phone batteries and blah blah and that I get it saves money, but it also costs producitiy.
The CEO nodded and said "Tell you what, in 2 weeks the CIO is supposed to go in the field, I'll have him to go in the field with you and if he agrees that its costing our reps productivity and causing to many workflow issues I'll bring back 4G data to all devices
The CIO was there and said "CIO, your going to XYZ area and you will be riding with PJ, pay attention to how he uses his 4G data and if you think we should go back to the old plan where all devices had 4G"
The CIO went into the field with me, on the 3rd day at breakfast he said "Last night I called the CEO" and I said "yea?" and he said "I made a recommendation that we go back to our old data plan and ensure all your devices have 4G data, its obviously creating productivity issues and when you look at the cost per user, its not that great" FAQ
Do you still work there? If so why not?
No I do not work there I was much better at maintaining and growing existing clients than acquiring new ones. The company ended up buying another company and started laying people off, and made acquiring new business more important then maintaining the current business meaning I was going be let go so I quit and switched jobs before ethey fired me.
Sounds like a great CEO/he's what I wish all CEOs would be comments
He's still a ruthless business person, I'll give you an example of what he did to a lot of managers. When he bought out his competitor. He had a lot of redundancy and a lot of managers on rock-solid employment contracts which he couldn't just "lay off" so he took the managers with those contracts and turned them into phone reps. Imagine being a sales manager or even a VP and getting a call and being told you are no longer a manager or a VP and your demoted, not even an outside sales rep but an inside phone rep.
Those managers obviously didn't perform very well after being demoted and would be written up for poor performance and let go. I know of a VP in the company who was demoted to a phone rep position. And literally got written up for poor performance for his first month. O and he was still getting his VP salary (per the contract, they could change his position/duties but they could not pay him less and the only way they could fire him would be through poor performance)
Also another thing he did, he invested a lot in automation during this time so he could lay off even more people. I had a talk with my manager one day, and he said the CEO was obsessed with revenue/per employee number and was determined to drive that number up.
I want to work for them, can give me the company name/etc
No, for two reasons
First reason, the company is currently not hiring and actively laying people off. Their primary revenue comes from small, and medium-sized businesses. As you can imagine due to the economic circumstance those small businesses can no longer afford to pay their bills, which includes my former employer. As a result, they've had to downsize. I'm sure the company will survive, they had crazy healthy margins, and I heard right before the economic downfall they had a lot of cash on hand for another acquisition of some competitors which they didn't go through with cause I bet they are using that cash to survive.
Secondly, I don't want to be doxxed.
What's my opinion of this CEO
Honestly nothing but fucking respect. The dude is inspiring. He is also not someone I would not want to be, he's an obvious work alcoholic, his personal net worth is in excess of $100+ million and he doesn't need to work ever again but according to all the VPs/Managers I spoke to the dude literally works 7 days a week at all hours of the day.
Put it this way, he travels SO MUCH in his biggest markets he keeps a car that he bought since its cheaper then buying a rental everytime he flys in
What did I take away from my time with them?
Honestly, I think a lot of companies could learn a lot from this company. Seriously why more companies don't force their top leadership to work within the ranks on a regular basis is beyond me. Its one gripe I have with my current employer.
This is how he reduced his sales staff
When he bought out the competitor he removed all sales objectives. He then made maintaining current/growing current client worth 1x he made acquiring new clients worth 5x. Also losing revenue cost you 1.5x Everyone was ranked against everyone, and he placed everyone in quadrants if you fell in the bottom 25% for 2 months in a row you got laid off.
And this created for some interesting results. Example I had a family emergency. I took off for one week. For that one week I did $0 in business. however because people who were ranked ABOVE me lost revenue I rose in ranking. And the first week I came back I closed on a new business, increased revenue, and fell in rank because others around me did more.
It created for some depressing performance reviews, a co-worker of mine closed decent sized new business and he thought for sure that'd save his job. It didn't, because another person sold more then he did, and it kept him in the bottom 25% and he was fired. Thursday evening he was so excited about his new account, thinking it saved his job. Friday afternoon he let go.
submitted by DKNG has seen huge gains this week, mostly focused on Tuesday and today, Thursday. Both days saw intraday spikes on sports-world news: on Tuesday afternoon a presser with Gary Bettman was announced and on Thursday it was announced that the Premier League would return in June. Oddly, the stock did not move back down at all after Bettman’s announcement turned out to just be an expanded playoff format, and nothing about a return to the ice. The Premier League news didn’t seem to have much impact on other sports betting stocks either.
Both of these events point towards something that seems obviously clear: DraftKings’ stock is hugely overpriced, but seems to keep being driven up just by trading. I think there are cases to be made for short term bull or bear, and for long term bear. I’m already in on the long term bear case with Nov ‘20, Dec ‘20 and Jan ‘21 Puts that have all taken a beating, but debating what the profitable short term play is.
For some context, I used to trade bonds on one of the biggest desks in NY, but moved to be closer to family a while ago and run my own business. My state is not supported by DraftKings, so keep in mind when reading that I am a bit salty towards the company and their ability to sniff out VPNs. Been a long time lurker here, but this is my first post.
The company’s Q1 earnings was pretty enlightening and quite the spin job. I was shocked to see the stock rise that day after what I read to be a pretty poor outcome. Growth in marketing expenses can be written off as entering new states, but seeing no growth in net revenue despite 30% growth in gross revenue means that the company has a growth problem, in other words almost all the revenue growth was driven by giving away free bets and reducing vig. Let’s look further at revenue growth though.
I found it very interesting that the company led with “30% revenue growth” when, in fact, that was only at Old DraftKings, which makes up about 75% of New DraftKings revenue. SBTech makes up the rest and grew at only 3%, giving the public company a 23% growth rate for the quarter, not 30% - spin job.
The company also gave us an interesting insight into coronavirus’ impact on their business, maybe unintentionally. At Old DraftKings, they noted 60% growth through March 10th. If we assume each day through the quarter is equal, that means the last 21 days of the quarter would have been down 70% vs Q1 ‘19, that’s big. However, we know not all days are created equal in the world of sports, and Q1 included 5 NFL playoff days and the Super Bowl. If we assume NFL betting days are 3x a normal day and the Super Bowl is 3x a normal NFL day, you can see your way to revenue post-March 10th being down 95%. A similar look at SBTech’s drop from +19% to only +3% means revenue post-coronavirus is down at least by half.
Another interesting lens to use in looking at the company is how they pitched themselves when the merger was announced five months ago in December. On slide 22 they compare their valuation to a variety of comps, trying to show that the valuation is fair, probably trying to alleviate the fact that the valuation for DraftKings was about 4x what Paddy Power paid for FanDuel 18 months earlier. I’m going to ignore the “EV / 2021E Revenue – Growth Adjusted” multiple that they highlight, because adjusting a forward looking multiple based on your own forward looking growth projections is absolute garbage, and instead look at EV / TTM 3/31 Revenue for those same comps.
At $39 per share, DraftKings has a market cap a bit over $15 billion on TTM revenue of $451 million, giving them a revenue multiple of 33.7x. For those of you that haven’t been around the block a few times, that is outrageously high. The “High Growth Consumer Internet” category that they selected is at 8.1x and “EU Sportsbook Operators” at 3.6x. Their best comp is probably Flutter, which is Paddy Power + Fanduel + Stars, trades at 7.8x. DraftKings deserves a higher multiple than Flutter given that they are pure-play USA vs Flutter which has a lot of retail european revenue that isn’t high growth, but the two companies currently have the same market cap, despite FanDuel being a direct comp to DraftKings with more market share in the fast growing business segments. Even if you said DraftKings should trade at a 50% premium to Flutter, which is being very generous, that implies a share price of only $13.50.
I know what you’re going to say: “this is all about more states allowing sports betting.” Fine, let’s look at what would need to happen at the state-level to get DraftKings’ current valuation to be reasonable. Going back to the December investor presentation, DraftKings estimates their sports book net revenue at $2.3 billion given 25% market share and 65% of the US having online betting, with a 22% allowance for promos from Gross to Net. That let’s us back into $4.5 billion of gross revenue at 100% of the population. Let’s then give them a 30% bump on that for iGaming. Using the company’s current $15 billion valuation and the same 50% premium to Flutter’s revenue multiple above (11.7x) that means they need $1.28 billion of revenue, or $831 million more than they currently have. $831 million more revenue needed means they need 14% more of the population to legalize in the very short term. Of the big five states, CA, TX, FL, NY and PA, none are going to add any population, with PA already online, NY choosing retail-only and the other three being no where close to legalization and widely considered by researchers and lobbyists to be years away. The remaining 46 states, including DC, average 1.3% of the population each, meaning you need a windfall of states to add 14% of the population.
Don’t get started on nationally legalized sports betting, no one is even pushing for that and it is never going to happen. The SCOTUS repeal of PASPA was as much about taking away the Federal Government’s ability to make national decisions like allowing or disallowing sports betting as it was about sports betting itself. Sports betting will roll out throughout the US, but it is going to be a state-by-state slog.
Another thing to consider is what the company might do with its highly valued stock. As we saw with Tesla a few months ago, a big run up in stock price is a great time to do some financial maneuvering. I think there are two very good options for management right now. The first is obvious: follow-on equity offering. In going public via a reverse merger with a SPAC, DraftKings barely tapped the big institutional investors. A follow-on would be a great way to load up the coffers further - anyone that watched TV in 2015 knows they love to spend money on ads - at a very attractive valuation for the company. The problem with this is that new shares coming in, or the follow-on pricing poorly, could be a big drag on the current share price.
Another option might be a little less obvious, but I think could make a lot of sense for the company: Buy William Hill. William Hill currently has a market cap of about $1.5 billion. They have a huge footprint in Europe, a market that DraftKings previously tried and (largely) failed to enter, are a big threat to DraftKings’ DTC approach in the US and have the tech that powers much of the land-based casinos’ sportsbook operations in the US. DraftKings could buy them with their cheap stock, or issue new equity to raise money for the acquisition. DraftKings would add a ton of revenue, could cut lots of duplicated costs, diversify across geographies and sports to temper their seasonality, and replace WillHill’s outdated tech with their much better apps. The big downside is that the CEOs of the two companies seem to really dislike each other.
One reason that I think the stock could be up so much since the “IPO” is that there are a very small number of liquid shares. Remember that this wasn’t an IPO at all, it was a reverse merger with a SPAC, meaning that a much higher percentage of outstanding shares are currently locked up than would be in a typical IPO. That constraint on supply with big retail demand could be a huge driver in the stock gain.
Circling back to be three cases for what I think could happen: - Short term bull: Sports come back, stock (irrationally) trades up on it - Short term bear: Correction to a more realistic valuation, bulls taking gains, any of NHL, NBA, MLB announce they won’t play again in 2020, financial maneuvering by the company - Long term bear: Correction to a more realistic valuation, bulls taking gains, any of NHL, NBA, MLB announce they won’t play again in 2020, financial maneuvering by the company, Q2 or Q3 earnings disappoint/are eye opening, any blip to the NFL cash cow, NBA or NHL ‘20-’21 season delays, lockup ending in October
Just giving my two cents on how I’m looking at this and trading it, and curious to hear any other thoughts or theories on real reasons why the stock is moving and where it is going.
Last thought: for those of you that like DraftKings at this price, you should LOVE Flutter at this price.
submitted by NOTE: I typed this up last night and only posting now. Someone else posted a Face Hunter deck earlier today, but there's is minion-based and mine is burned-based. So I feel like this is still worth posting
Burn Face Hunter did me very well in year of the dragon. However, early DH destroyed the deck and I had only a 50% win rate during AOO before I gave it up.
Now with DH being nerfed and most decks being a lot slower in win they put minions on the board, it's really good again. I went 10-4 before expansion to get to D5 in prep of the launch (note: only from desktop, did not keep track of mobile games but I got there veryyyy quickly), and just went 24-14 D4-L.
I do not think this a tier-1, top-legend deck (especially because it's easily counterable if it became meta). But it is a very quick deck with very good matchups, so I think one of the best to simply climb to legend.
(Note: Crashed during my last game, hence showing 23-14 and Diamond 1 as highest, but picture proof of Legend status)
Proof
Legend:
https://i.imgur.com/5ZEoAtE.png Stats:
https://i.imgur.com/ysenxRB.png (1.3 is pre expansion [Bronze to D5], 1.4 is post expansion [D4 to L])
The Deck
2x (1) Arcane Shot
2x (1) Leper Gnome
2x (1) Rapid Fire
2x (1) Timber Wolf
1x (1) Tour Guide
2x (1) Toxic Reinforcements
2x (1) Tracking
2x (2) Explosive Trap
1x (2) Freezing Trap
2x (2) Imprisoned Felmaw
2x (2) Kobold Sandtrooper
2x (2) Misdirection
2x (2) Phase Stalker
2x (3) Eaglehorn Bow
2x (3) Kill Command
2x (3) Unleash the Hounds
AAECAR8ChwSbzQMOqALJBN4EkgXtBpcIwwjbCf4M7JYD86cD+68DhbADorkDAA==
To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
This is NOT an aggro deck. This is a burn deck.
You are not putting minions on the board, you are not playing for tempo, you are hitting their face and then hitting their face some more.
This means you are not susceptible to removal at all and taunts don't hold you back too much considering all the damage from spells+deathrattles+hero power.
Unless you NEED to trade (eg setting up a secret, getting through a taunt means more damage), do not trade. Make them trade.
Always remember: "Do me trade? Nope. Me go face? Yep"
Changes from Scholomance Academy
Tour Guide replaces the one of of Wolfrider, which is a massive boost because Wolfrider was either a worse play than your other options early or couldn't get past taunt late. It also really opens up turn 3 plays with Stalker and Felmaw, as well as sets up playing Stalker on 2 safely in every matchup.
However, due to it being a very poor card later in the game, I don't see it being a two of.
The bad matchups
Aggro decks since they can kill you with minions before you can burn them out, especially if they can get out of range of Explosive Trap.
The other is massive healing/armor decks. Minor healing/armor is fine, which is what's mostly around right now. If something like Witchwood era Malygos Druid ever comes back though, you have no chance.
The good matchups
Really, basically everything else. The plan is to burn them out by turn 7. If it's past turn 7 and you're in top deck mode, you can still burn them out if they don't have a way to get healing/armor (and sometimes can push through that with the right draws).
Mulligans
Easiest mulligans in the world: Toxic Reinforcement, Phase Stalker, Imprisoned Felmaw ONLY.
The exception: Explosive Trap instead of Felmaw in aggressive matchups that have sub-3 health minions like DH.
Only keep two Toxic Reinforcement in slow match ups (eg Priest)
Matchup breakdown
Demon Hunter Haven't faced since the expansion but from past experience about I would guess ~40/~60 unfavored now that DH has been nerfed so much. It mostly comes down to if you can Explosive Trap (either by hand or from phase stalker) on turn 4 to clear their initial board. If you don't, you lose. If you can, you have a good chance.
Early Phase Stalker: If you can coin it out on 1 and they don't already have a 1 drop on the board, maybe. You still probably want to save him to try to get explosive trap later. Definitely not raw on 2.
Token Druid Only faced one, died. This is going to be a bad matchup since they can easily buff outside of Explosive Trap range and just kill you with their guys. Can easily see this being like against prime DH, something like 10/90 unfavorable
Beast Druid My stats were at ~60/~40 favored. Basically if they have the nuts, you're pretty screwed. If they don't and you have a good hand, then it's hard to lose
Early Phase Stalker: Yes. Their only removal of it is a 3 mana spell they mulligan away, and potentially off a 1 mana discover they probably mulligan away.
Hunter While my stats say 70/30 favored, I don't think that will be the case going forward; As said above, killing us before we can kill you is our antithesis and Hunter can normally do that with early minions.
That said, you’re a lot better than the current face hunter decks out there since they run things like Dwarven Sharpshooter, Scavenger's Integrity, and Pack Tactics. But Dragon Hunter and an aggressive-style Highlander Deck are hard to deal with are about 25/75 unfavored. Slow style HL deck though you go back to being favored.
Early Phase Stalker: If Corrosive Breath is meta, no; Else if you can coin it out on 1 and they don't already have a 1 drop on the board than yes. Definitely not raw on 2.
Paladin IMO favored against Libram but my stats put me at 50/50. I had a lot of bad draws, and having experience against decks similar to how it runs you should be favored. Their early minions are weak, it's more of what they do in the mid-game that matters and we should be finishing them off by then. I would still probably only put it to 60/40 though - First day of School can help put them ahead on turn 1 and Libram of Hope is actually Libram of Dispair.
Unfavored against Murloc, as they are an aggro deck that can easily avoid explosive trap. Your best bet is to do as much damage as possible and counter lethal with wolf + hounds.
Early Phase Stalker: Only if they don't have a minion on the board
Priest 50/50 matchup: Do they have the 3-mana lifesteal spell early? You lose. Otherwise? You win. If they have it later, spend burn to get rid of that minion.
This matchup is a different playstyle though. Other matchups, you are generally worried about doing the most damage possible per mana given; against priest, resources matter a lot more and chipping away means little since they can heal up. Save cards for burst turns (eg don't throw Arcane Shots and Rapid Fires around willy-nilly). This is only match up that you're not actively trying to kill by turn 7.
Rogue Galakrond rogue, you eat them up. They do not do enough damage early to kill you, and all of their lackeys just build a bigger unleash. It's about a 75/25 matchup for us.
Aggro rogue is like current aggro Demon Hunter, you really need Explosion Trap to deal with their initial push. I was 40/60 unfavored against it and that sounds accurate.
Early Phase Stalker: Only if you can coin it out on 1 and they don't already have a 1 drop on teh board. Definitely not raw on 2.
Mage Did not lose once; In fact my all-time, every version, several expansions worth of data, I've lost to mage a grand total of 1 time. The most straightforward match up: Just hit them in the face.
Early Phase Stalker: Previous to this meta I would say yes; Devolving Missiles gives them a tool to deal with it though so I'm going to say probably not. And if Frost Bolt is ever meta, than definitely not.
Shaman Only faced one this expansion but I don't see how you don't eat them alive; My all-time, every version win-rate is 80% and it doesn't look like Shaman got much better. Even the quest shaman pen flinger floating around (which is fun!) you'll devour.
Early Phase Stalker: Yes, but can VERY easily turn into a no if things like Lightning Bolt, Earth Shock, Devolving Missiles become meta.
Warlock Warlock hurts themselves. Surprise, this is good for you.
That said, Quest Warlock did give me some issues previously if that ever comes back. Still, my all-time, every version record is 78% against Warlocks.
Early Phase Stalker: Previously always and another reason you're so favored, but because of the new Soul Shard 3 damage card it's now a don't.
Warrior Risky Skipper + Armorsmith is scary and can lose you the game on the spot.
That said, they need to get to that point. There's a reason these 5 classes are at the bottom here: you are very favored against these 5. Did not lose once ranking up this season, and my all time every version win rate is 86% against the class.
Early Phase Stalker: Always
Understand secret sequencing
I think understanding when to play your secrets and how you sequence them is one of the most important things in the deck. Yes, ideally Phase Stalker thins your deck and you don't have a choice (though if you have a secret in hand, you can teach him what secret to play as he won't play a secret you have up).
Misdirection is actually one of the biggest cards in the deck, due to people not playing around it. For example, if their board is one massive guy + a lot of minions with <=2 health (Eg, Edwin + Lackeys), Explosive Trap before Misdirection is a huge play. They are unable to break Misdirection without swinging with Edwin, meaning either it saves you damage (more time to burn them out) or does massive damage to their face.
This also means you generally don't want misdirection up if you have minions on the board: you don't want the change to be killing your guy. You either want it to hit them in the face, or at the very least take out another of their minions.
As people test for secrets with their worst minions going up, the general sequence you want is Explosive (take out small minions) -> Freezing (Take out another minion for misdirection to have a high chance of going face) -> Misdirection (Their minion to their face).
Another note: If they have a weapon equipped, their weapon will do damage to their minion. Very satisfying when a minion hits them in the face and dies.
In regard to Explosive Trap, you need to weigh the pros and cons of actually killing off some of their board in regards to Unleash + Timber Wolf. If it's a bunch of 1/1s, take the face damage.
Freezing Trap is there to protect Stalkers and thin our deck to get to more burn, to protect our face from a singular big minion, and to set up Misdirection.
The Turns breakdown
Things are a lot more variable than what's given so do not take this as gospel; however, this will cover vast majority of cases
Turn 1 If quest in hand: Play
Else if Stalker and Tour Guide in hand: Tour Guide to set up Stalker on turn 2
Else if coin in hand: Look at situations above if coin + stalker is the right play
Else if Leper Gnome in hand: Play
Else if Arcane Shot or Rapid Fire in hand: very match up dependent; if it's going to be a quick match, eek out every damage you can per mana you have. If it's a slow match up like Priest, it's better to save for burst at end. If your hand is also crap, it might be better not to send to their face to not give away that you're pure face deck (especially if you have tracking to play instead to look for something to play soon). But if you already have your turn 2-5 plans figured out, which you normally will, send that 1 damage ping to their face baby.
Else if tracking in hand: If you don't have a turn 2-4 play, look for that. If you do, look for end-of-game burn.
Else: "Greetings Traveler" and pass
(EDIT: Good addition from
SilphThaw:
If you have coin, TR and Felmaw, wouldn't it always be desirable to coin out the Felmaw on T1? It feels like tapping on 2 and possibly coining out Felmaw on 3 is just very slow. We don't fight for the board, but having tempo will slow down opposing aggro decks. The 5/4 that awakens on turn 3 is very strong and more likely to hit face than one on turn 5)
Turn 2 Phase Stalker in situations listed above: Play
Else if quest up: Hero Power
Else: Felmaw (note: sometimes Felmaw is better than HP with quest up; eg, you're not worried about having gnomes on turn 5 vs turn 4; You want Felmaw to go off before Turn 6 [as next option is to play him turn 4 if no coin]; You care more about having a bigger body on the board on turn 4 rather than 3 small bodies. However, HP with Quest is normally the right choice)
Else: Hero power
Turn 3 Things start to branch too much to do a simple conditional like above. As an example: You have quest up which means you almost always want to hero power. But what if you have no one mana play to play with HP, you have weapon in hand, and you know they'll have taunts in the next couple turns - You'd rather weapon up and hit them in the face, since it'll be a dead card soon and you'll still get quest value later.
But generally:
-Quest + HP if you don't already have quest
-Coin or Tour Guide, Stalker or Felmaw, and Hero Power (even without quest up, to get these guys going) is basically always great
-Weapon to face, especially if they'll have taunts soon, gives 6 damage for 3 mana.
-Hero Power + 1 mana card as listed during turn 1 is never something you're that sad about
Turn 4 Basically always HP + 2 drop. Stalker obviously best choice, Felmaw is never bad, you might choose a secret over either if it counters the enemies current board state (see understanding secret sequencing), and Kobold Sandstorm is still 3 damage. If we're using any 1 drops here, unless it's double Leper Gnome, we're probably sad.
Turn 5 Similar to turn 4, but now weapon is in mix of being played. Possible lethal.
Turn 6+ Time for lethal. A lot of times this is with burst damage from some mixture of Timber Wolf/Unleash/Kill Command, with 1 mana spells filling out the rest.
Card Breakdown
Arcane Shotx2
2 damage for 1 mana to face? Hell yeah. Used in situations outlined in Turn 1 and Turn 3, or for final burn
Leper Gnomex2
2 damage for 1 mana to face AND potentially repeatable minion damage? Hell yeah. Used whenever to fill out your mana curve.
Rapid Firex2
2 damage for 2 mana to face? That's alright, especially since it can be sequenced in different turns. Used in situations outlined in Turn 1 and 3, for final burn, to set up Explosive Trap, to ping off a big attack 1 health guy, or...
One of the nice things with rapid fire is the ability to ping your own minions - meaning Leper Gnome or Kobold Sandtrooper. This has gotten me lethal quite a bit, as that 1 damage is now 2 or 3.
Timber Wolfx2
Only played as a combo card with Unleash or Kill Command, but makes them a lot more powerful.
Tour Guidex1
See the discussion above on "Changes from Scholomance Academy"; Can be very powerful but is not consistently powerful to be worried about putting 2 in.
Toxic Reinforcementx2
Top 2 card in the deck. Best on turn 1 or turn 3. Do not waste useful mana on it if the match is going to be decided in the next few turns (especially since you don't get value from it until the turn after you complete the quest)
Trackingx2
Use to find action early, burn late, needed secret, or combo pieces. Generally only play it when you need to find something else; if you already have action, make action.
Explosive Trap + Misdirectionx2
Face damage + helps keeps us alive. See Secret Sequencing section for more.
Freezing Trapx1
Also see secret sequencing section for more. It's still a rather low value secret though (since it doesn't deal face damage) so we only want it as a 1 of.
Imprisioned Felmawx2
Follow turn advice above. Like Toxic Reinforcement, don't waste useful mana on it on turn 5+ if the match is going to be decided before it goes off.
Kobold Sandtrooperx2
The "bad" two drop is still 3 damage to their face. However, only played on turn 4+ and sometimes too late when you need face damage now.
This CAN be played on turn 2 instead of HP if you think it can live to attack face, but 1 health makes it so easy to kill and it's normally better to save as an extra resource to play on turn 4/5/6
Phase Stalkerx2
Covered throughout
Eaglehorn Bowx2
Do NOT worry about building charges if they have taunts in their deck or game will end soon. Worst case scenario, you spent 3 mana for 6 damage. You don't need to maximize it's value.
Well, actually worse case scenario is you can't hit face with it. It's one of the weaker cards in the deck because of how bad it is turn 5+ when there will likely be taunts, but it's hard to let go of 6 damage for 3 mana. Bottom-5 card in the deck.
Kill Commandx2
Your burn card. Wolf + Kill Commandx2 is a great 10 damage finisher on turn 7
Unleash the Houndsx2
Either a great card or terrible card depending on the match up, making it a possible one-of to me. However, worse case scenario, it's an activator for Kill Command. Best case scenario, you counter-lethal somebody. So it's hard to let go of the second one.
Do not be afraid of a simple UTH+Timber Wolf on something like Turn 4 if you can do 6-8 damage right then and there.
Non-inclusions
Any tempo-based minion or spell Eg Animal Companion, Dwarven Sharpshooter,
We are not a tempo deck.
Voracious Reader Too slow by the time we'd get value; We want to hero power A LOT so we're actually not low on cards until turn 7+
Dragonbane Basically like Felmaw of potnetial 5 damage to face; However, costs more, comes down later, and needs to be combo. Just way too slow
Lion/Teron combo Only good after quest goes off, dead cards otherwise
Scavenger Ingenuity + Boar ...just put Wolfrider in your deck if you want a 3 mana, 3 damage charge.
Burrowing Scorpid Was my initial pick to replace Lifedrinker (4 mana beast that deals damage to face), but Felmaw ended up being way better. It's nice to have another beast activator, but 4 mana for 2 damage is really not good and we only really care about going face, not going stealth (we do not want removal or taunts to be an issue to us killing our opponent - again, not a tempo deck).
Penflinger The one I'm actually interested in, but I think it probably doesn't do enough. Would be very powerful if more control decks pop up.
Replacements
The only non-rare/common is at worst the second best card (and arguably the best card) in the deck - just craft it yo
EDIT
The more I've thought about the meta (a lot of mid-game taunts) and what I faced, I think I'd make the follow changes (I have not yet been able to test):
-1 Bow (Dead draw once they drop a taunt)
-1 Hounds (So good against Aggro and no Taunts on the board, but such a dead card against Taunts)
+1 Pen Flinger (So many 1 mana spells)
+1 Burrow (Gives straight face damage on a beast, to allow to combo with Kill Command)
EDIT #2
Haven't been playing it but people in comments talking about going back to +Hounds, -Scorpid. With the meta having picked up, I think it's the right move.
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