Sudden Betrayal

Sudden Betrayal Card

Sudden Betrayal is a 2 Mana Cost Common Rogue Spell card from the Kobolds and Catacombs set!

Card Text

Secret: When a minion attacks your hero, instead it attacks one of its neighbors.

Flavor Text

You thought he was your bro-bold, but turns out he's your foe-bold.

Sudden Betrayal Additional Information

This is the first time we are seeing Rogue Secrets in Hearthstone. Kobolds and Catacombs will feature three of them, however, in the next set there are new future plans to add more.

Rogue Secret Trigger Art

Each class has unique art when a secret is triggered, this is how Rogue’s will look:

Sudden Betrayal Card Review

What’s nice about this is that it cares about positioning, which is a criminally underused component in Hearthstone. However, like most secrets, it is easily played around by the opponent if they can put a weak minion between the one attacking and the one they don’t want it to attack, or simply by attacking with a weak minion. Despite that, Sudden Betrayal has a lot more going on under the surface. First, of course, we have to keep in mind that it is a Rogue secret, which means that as we discussed earlier, it will be fairly easy for the enemy to predict which one it is that you have played, especially since it’s not looking very likely that different secrets go into the same deck. Next, we have to appreciate that this card is not trivial to play around. Easy, yes, but not trivial, as it requires setup and planning on the side of the opponent, which can slow them down or force them to take suboptimal turns. Lastly, we have to really appreciate the simple fact that, albeit indirectly, this is a form of healing in Rogue. Damage prevention and/or health restoration have been tools the class is notoriously famous for not having access to (and for good reason, design-wise) and this is one of the very few defensive cards for Rogues. Luckily it doesn’t cost 9 mana this time.

Card Review by Chimbarozo

Sudden Betrayal Full Card Art

Sudden Betrayal Full Art

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13 Comments

  1. Imaloony
    November 26, 2017 at 2:01 am

    God, finally. The class that most deserved to have secrets can finally play with them. It’s not even that bad of a secret either. It still probably won’t see play in Standard since the opponent will know to play around it and it only works when they attack your hero (which, as with the Hunter Secret, makes it less likely to go off). Against Agro that makes it better, but true Agro is mostly dead at the moment and I imagine Rogue still won’t play this even if that weren’t the case.

    It’s not an awful pick in arena, but again, needing to attack face to go off is a problem, especially in minion-combat-central, and with the opponent likely playing around it with their board position.

    Standard: 1/5
    Arena: 2/5

  2. Xix
    November 22, 2017 at 9:32 am

    Missdirection but better? Allso can the minions kill each other?

    • Somebody
      November 23, 2017 at 9:17 am

      Lol it’s more like Betrayal but worse because you don’t even have control over it. The only upside would be that the minion also damages itself but it doesn’t matter if it’s a 1/1 that is dying

  3. shamanking
    November 21, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    Geeee I wonder why they would make rogue secrets 2 cost….. i wonder what blizzard is trying to accomplish
    /sarcasm

  4. Crapcrack
    November 21, 2017 at 3:07 am

    Betrayal does’nt see play soooo. I’m betting this won’t either

    • phantom
      November 21, 2017 at 7:32 pm

      because betrayal is very situational.. this is less so.. with betrayal you basically need them to have 3 minions out and aligned in a way that you get the best effect.. this can be played at any point meaning you dont have to use the mana on a specific turn.. and its effect with 2 minions on the field since it literally stops one attack..

  5. Joseph
    November 20, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    so he implied all the rogue secrets are similar to other secrets we’ve seen before, getaway kodo, betrayal, and kibler mentioned ice block and the guy seemed to freeze up a bit so… “when you hero takes damage, gain stealth for 1 turn”????? maybe….

  6. Joseph
    November 20, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    so he implied all the rogue secrets are similar to other secrets we’ve seen before, getaway kodo, betrayal, and kibler mentioned ice block and the guy seemed to freeze up a bit so… “when you hero takes damage, gain stealth for 1 turn”????? maybe….

    • Joseph
      November 20, 2017 at 4:35 pm

      i meant misdirection in place of betrayal

  7. D00mnoodle
    November 20, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    Weaker than the other secret, and even that one is probably not worth a deckslot, however as with the other secret if rogue ever gets a card like hydrologist this is actually pretty good in some match-ups (big decks). As a standalone card, its pretty bad i think

    1/5

    • Anonymus
      November 20, 2017 at 2:21 pm

      It also depends on what other secrets rogue gets. These are pretty straightforward to play around, but if they get something that can interact, or make your opponent think about how to order their attack, it could be better for this card too.

  8. Blux
    November 20, 2017 at 12:20 pm

    I love how K&C is bringing back how important positioning is. Also a ROGUE secret? That seems crazy fun.