Warrior: This is the matchup I hate the most, This is one of the reasons this deck does not show up in tournaments. Weapons just destroy all of your units and you only have a few threats
Warrior Mulligan: Keep poison / Teacher / Backstab SI:7 Agent (only if both to deal with armorsmith).
Warrior rant: Generally the first few turns of the matchup are just going to be daggering up and cycling your Shivs and Fans into more useful things. The reason I keep poison is to deal with turn 3 Acolyte, I really dislike when warrior draws with Acolyte. I would say it’s a lot more important to deal with a turn 3 acolyte when they go first (they have 1 less card when they go first) because SOMETIMES you can go for the value game. If you go first it’s mostly just about tempo. So lets go through a scenario which I think is pretty important and I’ve found to help me a ton in this matchup – Turn 3 – You have the option to play a Farseer on a naked board or cycle the Fan, you have a Violet Teacher in hand… what do you do!?!?!?. Play the fan! If he kills that farseer with a Death’s Bite, your violet teacher is toast! You need to squeeze every bit of value from your units and make the Warriors turns awkward. You need to be the one that pumps out threats before him so he just looks like an idiot using his hero power every turn while the board is growing on your side (try to be the first to play a threat if at all possible(like boom)). I’ve run out of damage against warriors before, usually it all comes down to a brawl for me. Not much else to say about this matchup, I hate it. It’s still winnable, but I hate it.
Priest: This matchup is favored, just make sure they don’t get infinite value by trading/healing their units
Priest Mulligan: Backstab / SI:7 Agent / Violet Teacher / Farseer (if something to deal with Cultist is in your hand).
Priest rant: Priest don’t have much burst, so if they build up a board you can usually just get a bunch of spell power and Fan/Backstab/SI it down. That being said it’s generally safer to just clear the board whenever possible. Priest usually don’t do anything until turn 3 – which is Dark Cultist, If you can Backstab / SI this you are in good shape, if not try to deal with it another way (Shiv Eviscerate). I really can’t say anything too helpful about this matchup, just anticipate Belcher on 5 and a way to deal with it. It’s a pretty standard matchup and you should just be focused on controlling board (Prep should either be used for swing turn or Sprint)
Mage: I usually only see super aggro mage on ladder, so you need to mulligan accordingly
Mage Mulligan: Backstab/ SI:7 Agent / Preparation / Farseer/ Deadly Poison
Mage rant: Try not to get too weak, they can kill you with Fireballs with no board. Against Aggro matchups don’t be afraid to just use Prep to get a little bit ahead. I keep Deadly against Mage because it can kill Mech Warper fairly easily(and helps kill Shredder sometimes but you don’t want to be face tanking those too much). Making your swing turn on 4 helps a lot if you can manage to get Violet Teacher + Prep + Eviscerate/Fan/some other spell because you get tokens and those help control the board.
Shaman: Keep the board as clear as possible, try to save Flurry for Spirit Wolves. Always clear the board whenever possible.
Shaman Mulligan: Backstab / SI:7 Agent / Fan /one Deadly Poison / Violet Teacher