Rat Trap
Rat Trap is a 2 Mana Cost Epic Hunter Spell card from the Core Set 2024 set!
Card Text
Secret: When your opponent plays three cards in one turn, summon a 6/6 rat.
Flavor Text
MISSING: One giant rat. Please return to King Togwaggle.- Mana Cost: 2
- Crafting Cost: 400 / 1600 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 100 / 400 (Golden)
- Rarity: Epic
- Class: Hunter
- Card Type: Spell
- Set: Core Set 2024
- Mechanics: Secret
Rat Trap Card Review
I’m not a big fan of this card. First things first, it’s very meta-dependent. Playing 3 cards in a single turn is actually not that common. Some decks do it all the time – especially combo decks – but others really don’t. Even Aggro decks rarely play more than 2 per turn – early in the game they usually play a minion or two on the curve, and later in the game they just don’t have enough resources to do it. Divine Favor or some early game shenigans with Coin are the counter-points, but I don’t think it’s enough. Against Aggro, you’d much rather have either Explosive Trap or Wandering Monster.
Against Control? Very unlikely. Control decks rarely play more than one card per turn, 3 is rather uncommon. When you’re at the point when they can play 3 cards per turn, they will usually either identify what Secret it is and try to play around it, or have an answer for your 6/6.
This card works best against combo decks. For example, it’s a good way to counter some Miracle Rogue turns, especially Gadgetzan Auctioneer or Edwin VanCleef turns, but even “regular” Preparation turns. Combo Priest also tends to play multiple cards per turn, especially with Radiant Elemental on the board. And so on and so on.
So whether you put this card into your deck or not will heavily be a meta call. The thing is, you really don’t want to spend 2 mana and a card and have to wait 4 or 5 turns for the pay-off. It would be much better if Hunter had a card like Mage’s Medivh's Valet – a card that benefits from having a Secret that is not triggered right away. Maybe something like that will get released?
One thing that is great is if this Secret sees ANY play, people will often think twice before playing their third card if they haven’t triggered your Secret yet. It will make other Hunter versions running Secrets better, as players might have it in the back of their minds. But in reality, I think it will turn into something like Sacred Trial – a Secret that you could play around quite easily.
Realistically, there are matchups in which this card is never going to proc and matchups in which you’ll have to wait at least a few turns. It’s also an RNG card, believe me or not. It’s so much better when going first, because now your opponent has a significantly higher chance to play more than 2 cards, thanks to the Coin. A simple 2-drop + Coin + 1-drop from Aggro will proc it, which wouldn’t happen if they were going first.
That said, the 6/6 you get from it is a pretty big deal. Having a 6/6 for just 2 mana is huge tempo gain if they proc it quite quickly. Depends on the situation, it’s either a great trading machine (you will usually get 2 or 3 for 1 with it in the early/mid game) or a way to push lots of damage.
It seems more like a tech card you can put into your deck when either the meta is right or people forgot about it already, don’t play around it and you might be able to punish them for that.
P.S. King Mukla synergy – give them two bananas they can’t use alongside another card or this will proc! That’s actually pretty funny, but they will know that they have to play around it then.
Card rating: 4/10
Rat Trap Full Card Art
Hey look a card for lilypichu dog temmie
Regardless of whether you think the card is crap and/or easy to play around, having it in the meta means people have to play with the consideration it is a possibility. That’s the beauty behind secrets: you never know until you’ve eliminated all possibilities what it could be or spent a card designed to remove secrets to get rid of it.
So overrated… This card will basically NEVER go off against control or aggro.
Very few aggro decks play 3 cards per turn (at least in the current meta, not sure about the next) other than maybe dude paladin? The best plays for murloc/aggro paladin or hunter is usually 1-2 cards. There are a few cases of playing 3+ cards such as divine favor but that’s in the late game. Passing turn 2 for a 6/6 on turn 6+? You’re dead.
Against control, they can play around this VERY easily. Honestly, hardly any control decks play 3 cards in 1 turn ever. Even IF it goes off in like 1 in 20-30 games, a real control deck can deal with a 6/6 easily. The tempo loss on passing turn 2 for this would simply be to damn high for the low payoff.
Some people may also say that this card doesn’t need to played on turn 2. So basically it’s a dead card in your hand? Against aggro, wasting any mana before turns 4-5 would be a huge disadvantage and a dead card in your hand will not help. Against control, a turn 10 6/6 is just irrelevant.
0/5 unless the meta changes into some midrangy deck that also likes to spam small minions for some reason…
Forgot to mention… I’m not very sure about the power level of echo, but it seems very weak in general. I don’t really see any of the echo cards actually being played except for maybe the warrior AoE or the burgle ones in meme rogue but nothing in the current dominant decks. I may very well be wrong, but I just think that all the echo cards are weak when played at any stage and the flexibility is simply not worth the cost.
Horribly designed card. Second player has a lower win rate and u designe crap like this? If your opponent is not second this is just dead card. Even if he is second i would say this card is still 1/5 star card. And team 5 just suck designing card like this.
Do we know the actual mana cost of the Rat that is summoned? Asking because this could be great with Dire Frenzy if its not too expensive.
is pretty bad
I can make loops around this card
Funny how no one remembers that this is part of the witchwood expansion – the one that specifically adds Echo as a new mechanic. Of course you play 3 cards per turn, we will see a lot of decks that are built around that mechanic. This trap is to counter 3 2/x minions summoned by an echo card, for example. Lets also not forget Rush is not charge. The enemy can either attack a minion or nothing. Thus, if you equip this early on, you can avoid having to deal with an echo card and can keep building your game to face, denying your opponent the shift in tempo. (Remember; echo only lasts the same turn. So on turn 6, you would play a 2/2 minion 3 times to rush it into whatever the hunter has in the bf, effectively spending all their mana to get their value from including the echo card in the first place.)
Versus… A GIANT Rat! (Thinking Dungeon Run)
I like this card, I don’t think it will be super powerful, but it can be very nasty. 4 out of 5 stars.
This card is kinda hard to rate, but it might see some potential in arena. 2 mana 6/6 is insane tho.
Very interesting card. I don’t see it as an investment (do nothing) in a slower hunter deck for a Vanilla 6/6, your opponent clears whenever he decides to do so! By the way: Good luck against Spiteful decks.
For know I’d say you only would want to play it in a very aggressive hunter deck, and in that case it actually would make sense with Mukla and the hoarding dragon. Your opponent has to be in the spot: Use my stuff or die! Don’t underestimate Mukla into Houndmaster into Hydra or Huffer into Hoarding Dragon into Leeroy.
There are two problems:
1. Cloaked huntress rotates to wild, so you
always have to cast it for two mana
2. What if you don’t draw the trap
The deck would definitely be able to cheese out some games, but for know I doubt it’s consistency.
I think this card is an early frontload of 2 mana. You play it so that later around turn 8 or 9 you get a 6/6. It is rather rare for a deck to play 3 cards before turn 5 even an agrodeck will usually only play 2 unless they have coin.
I dont think this will be a super popular card or a great card but it is not an aweful
Anyone else concerned that two rats can kill Deathwing?
The rat is not even that big in the art yet every cat in the game will be killed by it!
Well, not as worried as I was that a single snail can kill him.
Got eeem!!!!!!!
A you can only play 1 at a time, B who plays deathwing, C deathwing is 1 card and wouldnt trigger it
you must be great at parties…
This card deals a bluff that can stand during two turns,then limits your opponent to play only two cards every turn lol (what card would worth enough to summon a 6/6 to your opponent? Rarely this rat will be summoned but you take a big advantage limiting your opponent to play only two cards per turn,i loved it!!)
Anti-aggro tech card that works in the late game too. Or potentially dead secret.
Either way an easy mulligan.
Wow is this card both; terrible & overrated. How do u ever play this and expect your opponent to trigger it for you? Rogue is the only class this could work on, and if this card was playable, they would play around it. 1/10
It’s a tech card, and no one will play around it.
Still not good enough for more than 1 in a deck.
People play around mct. People will absolutely play around this which is great for the hunters not running it.
a lot of agro decks can play 3 cards especially if they have the coin. mage can trigger this with free secret minions and possibly not have enough mana to remove the threat. and control decks often play 3 plus cards in a turn. this card can trigger more than people give it credit for.
and even if they do play around it isn’t that a good thing?
2 mana heal blank amount of health by forcing your opponent to not pressure you as much as they can
2 mana bait a removal so you can safely play your highmane
2 mana deal 6 damage to enemy minions by forcing trades (also a heal of sorts)
these are not bad. it’s not good in every matchup, but it shines bright in some of hunter’s weakest battles.
After your opponent discover its rat trap,he must decise to summon a 6/6 or get limited to play only two cards per turn,rarely he can be safety from both and it’s good in any turn,is more versatile than another secrets that opponent can decise to not atack and just wait a turn to activate it a better way
Can’t wait to see the golden animation. I want to see some stink lines coming off of that cheese.
😀
Great Scot!
Against a tempo mage, this could trigger as soon as the turn after you play it. A 6/6 that early would probably force them to use a fireball on it.
This is rather bad against control decks early on, and when it does trigger in that match-up it won’t end up doing much, but that can apply to all but the best mage secrets. However, this can apply early enough pressure on Tempo and aggro decks to perhaps be able to snowball the game into a win often enough.
Tempo mage can get by pre aluneth just playing 2 cards per turn pretty easily.
Any deck can.
Yes it can, but I wrote could and if you go second you will most often end up playing at least three cards in one turn by turn 3. Kabal Lackey – Any mage secret – Medivh’s Valet on turn three will probably be on of the strongest plays the deck can make on that turn.
You just don’t do that against a hunter with a secret up. There is 0 reason to risk it.
Well, the most common secrets for them to have at that moment are Wondering Monster, best played around by attacking with Kabal Lackey first, Explosive Trap, best played around by attacking before you play your next minion as it will leave you with a 2/1, Freezing Trap, best played around by attacking with Kabal Lackey, and Cat Trick, something that would have triggered when the spell is played.
None of these situations are impossible to come back from on the turn after you make that play and that is assuming you are in the losing position when your end your turn.
Who gives a shit about those secrets. You just don’t play 3 cards.
that already makes this card worth it for hunter. forcing a tempo deck to forfeit tempo to not trigger the effect is super powerful. this probably isn’t for a minion based hunter deck where turn 1 2 and 3 are deathly important but spell hunter will put and least one in and if control hunter becomes a thing like blizzard want it to be, they’ll a add at least a copy too.
I guess if you have nothing better to do turn 2 than deny your opponent’s coin a couple turns.
Medivh’s Valet is rotating out.
I am aware, but the most powerful early game plays of the current Secret Mage deck will most often involve playing three or more cards in a turn.
You have to invest tempo, 2 mana and a card into this and if you are lucky you make someone float a mana instead of playing a 3rd card once every couple games.
That floating mana will represent a play not taken and a weaker position as a result. Restricting yourself as a aggressive or tempo based deck, decks that need to generally throw out everything they can onto the board before the get out valued by midrange and control strategies, just is not possible when you’re going against a Midrange or Spell Hunter.
It does cost your turn two if you play it then, but if you take shorter turns to play around this card, you are also losing tempo. Playing a secret on turn two will always pay you back in tempo if you’re also holding Emerald Spellstone.
This card will not be useful against midrange and control decks though since the former like to simply play the best single card they can on any given turn until the later stages where they can play more and outside of two card removal and draw combos, control decks will also rarely play more than one card a turn.
Of course floating 1 mana is a tempo loss but it is an infrequent result of this card and doesn’t come close to offsetting the cost of playing this card.
The secret Hunter deck will likely be sticking around after the rotation even with the loss of Cat Trick and Cloaked Huntress. This card will likely be a part if it since it is better than Snipe and help make up for the loss of Cat Trick. None of the other Hunter secrets can force your opponent to shift their play style quite like this one can.
Secret mages plays 3 cards a turn because they get mana discounts with lackey and kabal crystal runner. Those cards rotate out. If the rotation doesn’t kill the aggro mage archetype, it will at least kill the mana discount mechanics, and with it, the 3-cards-a-turn gameplay.
People keep talking about how this secret is too easy to play around
wat? thats a good thing it limits how many cards your opponent can pay in a turn and I doubt your opponent wants to waste a removal on a two mana card
BTW the art looks so crisp
It has a really good pay off if it procs but a decent player can know if is this card by just going face with a minion.
It can work as a psychological spell though and make people thing is this one instead of a “hit face” secret. It’s just good that it exist for mind games with secrets.
But just by hitting face with a weak minion(thing they will do anyway to test for other secrets) eliminates 90% of secrets, ( the others being snake, venomstrike trap and snipe, which are rare/ underwhelming).
Even if they figure out this is the one secret you have the turn after you play it, they’re left with two options.
Either hinder their own turns to prevent them from gaining the big threat a 6/6 body will be while you can play unhindered
OR
Rip the band aid off all at once and deal with it, hoping the value gained off of playing that third card will undo the pressure you just applied on them with the 6/6 body you played pretty much for free.
Seems like a card that is too easy to play around to ever become meta for long but it’s going to pop up and surprise people occasionally.
Also makes your hunter deck stronger without even having to run it in the deck.
3 cards in a turn is likely 3 minions from an aggro deck. 1 big body isn’t doing anything against a wide board, though maybe it gives you enough damage to start racing face and force them to trade? I’m not really seeing this one being good.
The rat is probably a beast, houndmaster will give it taunt.
Maybe the Controll hunter will see his rising with its best card, the updated DK.
So this fits in pretty good.
By my understanding , this expansion takes a massive bowel movement on Druid and seems to be buffing up Priest and Hunter. At least for now.
We’ve still only seen half of the cards Druid will be getting, and the Witching Hour is really powerful. Plus, the class still has access to the amazing support it got in Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds and Catacombs.
Priest will be losing half of the cards that are making the class playable at the moment. Lady in White may be a powerful card, but Priest is not a class that will be able to capitalize on the value created by it anywhere near as fast as the classes that typically play Keleseth unless they get some real card draw instead of the semi-random card generation the class favors. Same general idea applies to Chameleos.
Hunter’s card line-up thus far seems to be pulling the class closer to a control deck and away from the traditionally aggressive midrange style the deck has preferred when not simply going face all of the time.
Sorry, but as I said, Druids are taking a hit in this expansion, I wasn’t really talking about KotFT, it’s true we’ve only seen only around half of the cards for Druid, but considering Witching Hour is the only good one so far (Apart from Gloom Stag in a Baku deck) so I doubt there will be much hope of something game changing for the class getting released.
While many of the Priest cards that made the class playable are rotating out, viable priest decks are still being theorycrafted and I’m willing to bet that even after the removal of cards like Raza and Drakonid Operative, there will still be an effective way to play Priest
Hunter is obviously being taken in a different direction, against the traditional face tactic. But aside from that, Hunter is being given the best cards thus far (In my opinion at least) obviously we have yet to see half the expansion as you said. But I think it’s safe to say that Hunter (If not priest) is definitely going to be powerful when this expansion releases and Druid, after the removal of Jade along with the abhorrent cards that we’ve seen so far, will take a dive.
1 star card.
Sure a 6/6 is great for 2 mana.
But this secret is so easily played around that in most games it wond even activate.
You only need to do a direct attack and play a spell at some point to be sure what secret the opponent has.
Not that you really can play 3 cards a turn befora turn 5-6.But even if you are a aggro player as i said you just play around it.
cat trick rotates. so yes go face and get my wandering monster, and later when you lackey/rin + coin + dark pact, i’ll take a 6/6. your choice bud.
This card would be almost impossible to play around as a Rogue, Tempo Mage, or Zoo Warlock as well as most aggro decks, and hindering yourself to only playing two cards in a turn when you could play a third against a Hunter can easily be suicide.
Its arrogant to think a 6/6 without even taunt can be a problem to aggro decks.
Voidlord cant many times stop aggro so reconsider.
This is a slow inconsistent secret for a deck archetype that already struggles for tier 2.
tempo mage is dead
zoolocks don’t play 3 cards a turn before like turn 7. If they have the coin they go double one drop on turn one, so nope.
Miracle rogue is the only matchup I can think of where the card is OK. But it’s not particularly good.
Miracles rogues don’t actually often play 3 cards a turn. They only do that:
– when they play vancleef
– when they have a preparation + spell + something.
– with auctioneer
Except:
– they can make a 4/4 vancleef. If you do a 2mana nothing and they do 3mana 4/4, you lose. BTW, if you do 2mana nothing and they do 3mana 2/2, you’re the one who’s behind.
– they can just (prep) sap your 6/6 if they really need to.
Remember how bad the hunter quest is? Because a 5mana 8/8 beast that fills your deck with op minions doesn’t matter if you had to play a 1mana do nothing earlier?
Well this is a TWO mana do nothing.
Lol,against aggro you just use the other tempo cards hunter have,you’re considering it against only one deck archetype
Welp this is a Rogue counter that no one needed
Neat
If you fancy a permanent question mark…
Coin—Knife Juggler—Lost in the jungle VS 6-6 Rat.
Not bad at all.
Let’s be more realistic.
on turn 2 you played rat trap
on turn 2 they play juggler
on turn 3 you play whatever (at best, bow and kill the juggler)
on turn 3 they coin call to arms, and you lose because you skipped your turn 2.
I’d be excited if Secret Hunters best card Cloaked Huntress wasn’t phasing out. Unless we get some kind of new secret supporting card, I don’t see it meaning much to the meta.
As long as spellhunter is a thing it will use secrets. Also spellstone is awesome.
I’d disagree, spell stone is the strongest secret hunter card. But huntress is definitely a hit. On the other hand, this is an incredible secret. Great replacement for cat trick.
Is not that big of a lost. You still have spellstone and eaglehorn bow. Now the question is how often your opponent plays 3 cards a turn and how easily they can play around it and limit themselves until they have removal. Tough card to rate
oh you’re so right, hunter is losing it’s secret support. i guess secret keeper, eaglehorn bow, prof putricide and spellstone are useless now. rip huntress hunter will be so lost without you.
Not every Spell/Secret Hunter is playing Cloaked Huntress in part because of the Barnes combo. Losing a powerful tempo tool like that will make the deck a little slower, but the hunter secrets tend to be powerful enough on their own.
Lul, I just thought about this kind of a secret right 1,5h ago. Can see play in my opinion, but not won’t triggered early in game – strong 3.
that is one fat rat!
Lol rat fat? So much good songs that dude create:monody,time lapse,nonono,infinite power,unity…
It’s a BFR
Great card for Spell Hunter, good against aggro and pretty much all other decks, a lot of decks play 3 cards in a turn by like turn 7-8 and contesting the board with a 6/6 is really nice.
Probably the easiest one to dodge so far (after Dart Trap), but it forces your opponent to play around something and has a pretty significant payoff so I guess its pretty good.
Aggro and tempo deck cannot last against the midrange might of a Hunter by hindering themselves to only two cards a turn. You might be able to hold them off well enough early on, but as soon as they get Deathstalker Rexxar out and start drawing two cards per turn, one of which will have a powerful board presence, you will need to play that third card if it will do anything toward getting control of the game back.
If you play 2mana do nothing against aggro as midrange hunter you just get overwhelmed and die in a few turns.
Who revealed this card? It’s not on the schedule for card reveals.
IGN Brasil. And yes, it’s off the schedule. We were surprised by that reveal too, but it seems legit.
Yep, this was off-schedule, but they mentioned this stuff would happen on the reveal schedule: “Note that this is not a comprehensive schedule of all card reveals. Select cards may be a part of regional promotions that do not have a set reveal time.”
not sure if this is that good
The answer is no.
Which Hunter wants a trap that either triggers never or only in the late game? Dead card most of the time. Awful.
should be a 7-7, 2 mana 7-7
King Mukla