Mad Scientist

Mad Scientist is a common neutral minion card, from the Curse of Naxxramas set.

Known bugs
As of January 2015, a known bug allows Mad Scientist's Deathrattle to cause the player to exceed the 5 secret limit. Mad Scientist still will not act upon duplicates of currently active secrets, but will put additional different secrets into play if available in the player's deck, essentially ignoring the 5 secret limit. This has been shown to allow at least 11 different secrets to be active on a hero at the same time. Secrets beyond the 5 limit will activate and take effect normally, and in the correct order.

Strategy
Mad Scientist is a very strong choice for any secret- or Deathrattle-oriented deck. 2 copies are commonly used even with as few as 3 secrets in the deck, especially for decks focusing upon the early to mid game.

Should the player remove all secrets from their deck before the Mad Scientist's Deathrattle can trigger, the Mad Scientist's value can quickly evaporate. This is particularly important for decks with low numbers of secrets. Despite this, as long as there are sufficient secrets in the deck to provide a good statistical chance of the Mad Scientist putting on into play, the minion can be considered a solid choice.

The threat of the secret put into play by the Mad Scientist can also be effective in affecting the opponent's plays, even if the player lacks the secret. However, be aware that a Mad Scientist that does not put a secret into play may provide the opponent with information regarding your remaining deck (see below).

No draw
The behaviour of this minion's Deathrattle means that should it fail to put a Secret into play, the controlling player therefore has either already drawn all of their remaining Secrets, or has only copies of existing Secrets left in their deck:


 * If the controlling player has no active Secrets, this means they have no Secrets remaining in their deck.
 * In Play mode, if the controlling player has Secrets active, this means they have up to 1 copy of each active Secret remaining in their deck. However, in Arena the number of remaining Secrets could of course be higher, due to decks potentially including more than 2 copies of a given card.
 * For example, if a player in Play mode with 2 active Secrets fails to draw a Secret from the Mad Scientist's Deathrattle, they have between 0 and 2 Secrets remaining in their deck.
 * Any Secrets left in the deck must also be copies of existing Secrets, allowing the player to discount other possibilities. Once any active Secrets have been revealed, the player can be certain of the identity of any Secrets remaining in the deck.
 * Note that this only indicates the contents of the player's deck - they may have Secrets left in their hand. Once the contents of the deck have been surmised, the maximum number of additional Secrets remaining can be learned from the size of the player's hand.
 * Careful counting of the cards in the player's hand can reveal whether any of those cards were Secrets, further consolidating the knowledge gained.

For example, if a player in Ranked play with 0 active secrets fails to gain a Secret from the Mad Scientist's Deathrattle, they have no Secrets left in their deck. If they have cards currently in their hand, the opponent can watch the position of those cards, and once they have all been played, can be sure the player has no other Secrets remaining this match.

Lore
s are s found in.


 * While "s", often referred as doctors, can come in any race and certainly are not exclusive to the and, the undead do have their own specific kind of mad scientist, typically male Forsaken alchemists who utilizes their on own strain of chemicals from tanks strapped to their backs. While some work with Sylvanas to create an even deadlier plague, several are in the employ of the  or the .

Trivia

 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Dungeon Decks 2011 Treasure" series, for the card Forsaken Blightspreader.

Patch changes

 * Added.