Zephrys the Great

You might be looking for one of these cards: Zephrys the Great (Core).

Zephrys the Great is a legendary neutral minion card, from the Saviors of Uldum set.

Zephrys grants the wishing player a card from a selection of three cards, from the Legacy set, to help turn the tide of battle in the player's favor. The selection of cards is based on what is best for the current game state for the player, as determined by an internal algorithm.

Of all Hearthstone cards, Zephrys the Great required the most development work and the largest team effort to design.

Other versions

How to get

Type	Source	Quality	Count
Card packs	The Regular version can be opened from any of these packs:	Regular	1 (random)
Card packs	The Golden version can be opened from any of these packs:	Golden	1 (random)
Crafting	Craft a Regular copy for 1600	Regular	1
Crafting	Craft a Golden copy for 3200	Golden	1
Achievement	Uldum Legendary Collector (Collect all 23 Saviors of Uldum Legendary cards.).	Diamond	1

Notes

To edit these notes, go to Template:Zephrys the Great notes.

General[edit source]

• Zephrys' Battlecry allows the player to choose a card from the Legacy set to add to their hand from a selection of three cards, from any class. The three cards offered are based on what is best for the current gameplay situation, as calculated by an internal algorithm.^[2][3]
• The cards Zephrys can generate from the Legacy set are based on cards that were in the Basic and Classic sets before Patch 20.0.0.77662 and the introduction of the Legacy set.
  • Essentially, the following cards are not in Zephrys' pool, even though they are in the Legacy set:
    • Any card that was ever in the Hall of Fame
    • Any rotated Core card
    • Certain other exclusions (See below)
• Zephrys' algorithm will consider both players' board state, your available mana after playing Zephrys, your available mana for the next turn, both players' health totals (health and armor), both players' classes, both players' deck sizes, and how many cards are in your hand and in your opponent's hand.^[4][5][6] Zephrys also considers the number of Secrets the opponent has, and the opponent's weapon if they have one equipped.^[5] Zephrys also considers both players' Basic and Upgraded Hero Powers, but not most other hero powers.^[6][7]
  • Zephrys will only use "public" information in selecting his card offerings, as detailed above; thus, he will not see or use "private" information, such as what cards are in your hand.^[4][8]
• In addition to looking at the board state, Zephrys also breaks down cards from the Legacy set into categories. Zephrys uses these categories to offer the player the best cards from the three best categories.^[3][5][9] For example, Zephrys can offer one area of effect card, one single-target removal card, and one proactive card, such as a reasonable minion, in many situations.^[3] Sometimes Zephrys will offer more cards of one category than the others if they are significantly better for the current board state.^[10]
  • For example, if the opponent has enough minions on the board, Zephrys might offer three board clear cards.^[3] Generally though, there is a threshold at which Zephrys keeps offering cards from the same category.^[5]
  • For example, if the opponent has a Murloc, Zephrys is able to offer Hungry Crab to destroy it, but only if it is better than other single-target removal options considered by Zephrys.
• Zephrys will only offer cards that the player can play on the same or following turn. He tries to prioritize the former but can also offer choices for the latter if he detects that he can give an especially useful option for the following turn.^[2]
• Zephrys will always offer cards to grant the player lethal if possible in the current turn.
  • However, because Zephrys doesn't know what cards are in your hand, Zephrys will only spot lethal if the player has already taken the necessary actions to set up lethal.
  • Lethal will also only be granted if it is within the limitations of Zephrys' coding (please also see the "Lethal" section below).
• Zephrys only looks at "interesting" Legacy cards and will never offer "uninteresting" cards which players would rarely want, such as Bloodfen Raptor.^[2] There are a total of roughly 130+ cards that Zephrys looks at when considering what to offer for the player.^[5] For gameplay reasons (i.e. wishing for more wishes^[5]), he will also never offer cards with return to hand effects (namely Shadowstep, Youthful Brewmaster, and Ancient Brewmaster).^[11][12][13]
• Zephrys understands normal game mechanics and basic keywords^[14] (e.g. Taunt,^[15] Windfury,^[16] Divine Shield,^[17] Poisonous,^[17] Lifesteal,^[18] Spell Damage^[19][20][21]) but not special card text and effects (e.g. Electra Stormsurge,^[22] Deathrattles,^[23] Supercollider,^[24] Bomb Wrangler,^[25] Kayn Sunfury^[26]). He does, however, understand conditional effects (e.g. Kill Command,^[27] Houndmaster^[28]) and healing-into-damage effects (e.g. Auchenai Soulpriest^[29]). Zephrys also understands offering a few Choose One cards for their Choose Both effects (e.g. with Ossirian Tear).^[30]
• Zephrys is able to simulate what the game state looks like after some of Zephrys' offered cards are played on all possible targets. Zephrys then evaluates and compares the resulting game states after these targets have been "tested". Sometimes there might be simulations of waiting a turn to see what happens there. Holistically, Zephrys goes through a list of functions, one for each card that he offers, to obtain and compare resulting game states.^[5]
• Zephrys' Battlecry is similar to but not equal to a Discover effect, so it does not work with Discover-related effects such as Dwarven Archaeologist.^[31][32]

Offers[edit source]

• Zephrys is able to offer area of effect and single-target removal cards based on the attack and health of enemy minions, whether or not enemy minions will significantly reduce in stats if silenced, and whether enemy minions have Reborn^[33] or Deathrattle^[33] effects. When offering removal options, Zephrys understands core gameplay mechanics and common keyword states, but does not read or understand unusual minion card text and effects.^[14][34]
  • For example, if there are multiple minions on the opponent's board and they have 4 or less health, Zephrys is able to offer Flamestrike.^[35]
  • For example, when offering a board clear card, Zephrys may offer Brawl if there is 5 mana remaining, Twisting Nether to avoid the risk of any minions surviving, or Blizzard if Zephrys wants to lock up the board.^[3]
  • For example, if the opponent has a Twilight Drake, Zephrys is able to offer Earth Shock.^[36]
  • For example, if the opponent has a Lightspawn, Zephrys is able to offer Ironbeak Owl.^[37]
• Zephrys recognizes enemy Deathrattles but does not understand the effects of Deathrattles.^[38][39] Thus, when Zephrys evaluates whether to remove a Deathrattle minion, he first judges the minion's threat level by looking at its base mana cost, attack, and health, and then he compares these stats to the stats of a vanilla minion at the same mana cost. Zephrys then adds this difference in stats as a value to the opponent's board.^[23] Chadd Nervig, one of the main designers of Zephrys, additionally stated on Twitter that, "it's a bit higher than just subtracting the stats."^[40] For the cases when Zephrys decides to offer removal for an enemy Deathrattle minion, he will try to prioritize removal that won't activate the Deathrattle, such as with transform or silence effects, or Sap.
  • For example, if the opponent has a 6/6 Pyros, Zephrys is able to offer Hex to safely remove it without triggering its Deathrattle effect.^[41]
  • For example, if the opponent has a Khartut Defender, Zephrys is able to offer Hex to safely remove it.^[42]
  • For example, if the opponent has a Tortollan Shellraiser, Zephrys is able to offer Sap to safely remove it.^[43]
  • For example, if the opponent has a 5/7 Augmented Porcupine and Zephrys is played with 1 mana remaining, Earth Shock is able to be offered.^[44]
  • For example, if the opponent has a 4/5 Zixor, Apex Predator and Zephrys is played with 1 mana remaining, Earth Shock is able to be offered.^[45]
  • For example, if the opponent has a 1/1 Boom Bot and Zephrys is played with 1 mana remaining, Earth Shock is able to be offered.
  • In general, Zephrys is able to offer Earth Shock to remove a Deathrattle minion that will have 1 health remaining after silencing, even if with enchantments it currently has more health. To absolutely guarantee Earth Shock, Zephrys should be played with 1 mana remaining, the player has 5 or more cards in hand after playing Zephrys (to compete with the single-target removal spell Mortal Coil), the enemy Deathrattle minion is relatively high-cost with low base stats, and the minion is the only enemy minion on the board. Earth Shock is also able to be offered for 1-health Reborn minions.^[46]
  • Also, Zephrys does not offer Mass Dispel for a bunch of non-threatening enemy Deathrattle minions, such as a field of Leper Gnomes,^[47][48] because Zephrys does not read card text and does not consider them worthy of being silenced. Zephrys also does not offer Mass Dispel for a bunch of health-buffed enemy minions that are low in attack and thus considered non-threatening to Zephrys.^[49][50]
• Zephrys is able to offer a myriad of specific counter cards such as Acidic Swamp Ooze if the opponent has a weapon, Flare if they have an active Secret, Crazed Alchemist if they have a Doomsayer, and Hungry Crab if they have a Murloc.^[51]
• Zephrys is able to offer burst damage that's not lethal in the form of Bloodlust, Savage Roar, Windfury, and Windspeaker if the opponent's board is not very threatening; however, if the player has a lot of minions on board and lethal is not close in reach, Zephrys will prefer to offer Soul of the Forest instead.^[63]
• If the player is very low on Health, Zephrys will commonly offer several healing or survival options, such as Healing Touch.^[70] However, Zephrys will not always offer the most optimal option for healing or survival when the player is low on Health and in danger of dying.
• Zephrys is able to understand offering Combo cards for their Combo effects.
• Zephrys is able to offer minions based on their reduced costs, such as Dread Corsair and Sea Giant.
• Zephrys is able to offer High Inquisitor Whitemane to summon minions that died in the current turn if Zephrys is played with 7 or more mana remaining.^[79]
• Zephrys is able to offer Twilight Drake if there are at least 5 cards in hand after playing Zephrys.
• Zephrys is able to offer King Mukla to mill the opponent,^[80][81] or if the opponent's hand is full.^[82]
• Zephrys is able to offer Sap to destroy an enemy minion when the opponent's hand is full.^[83]
• Zephrys is able to offer Shadowflame to play on himself to deal his attack damage to all enemy minions,^[84][85] or to play on another minion to deal that minion's attack damage to all enemy minions.
• Zephrys is pessimistic about random-targeting cards that he offers in order to be safe.^[86]
  • For example, when Zephrys offers Brawl, he assumes the median enemy wins.^[86]
• Zephrys frequently offers Tirion Fordring as a proactive lategame card.
• Zephrys is able to offer Alexstrasza if the player is ahead on board with roughly at least 10 attack,^[87] the opponent's hero has more than 15 health, and there is at least 9 mana remaining after playing Zephrys. However, Alexstrasza cannot be offered in some Solo Adventures such as Tombs of Terror.^[88][89]
• Zephrys is able to offer Lord Jaraxxus in the late game.
• Zephrys is able to offer Faceless Manipulator if there is at least one big-statted minion on the board controlled by the player or by the opponent.^[72][90] Faceless Manipulator is more likely to be offered if the minion has Taunt,^{[71][91][92][93]} Deathrattle,^[42][94][95] Charge,^[96] or any other valuable common keyword state.
• Zephrys is likely to offer cards for card generation or card draw if the player has 4 or less cards in hand and the opponent's board is not very threatening.
• Zephrys does not offer cards for card draw if the player's deck is empty or near empty, but is able to offer cards for card generation instead, such as Ysera, Brightwing, and Thoughtsteal. Zephrys considers offering Thoughtsteal only if the opponent's deck has two or more cards.
• Zephrys offers cards only on their base cost, so cost-modifying effects such as Loatheb, Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Summoning Portal do not affect his offerings.^[97][98]
  • For example, Zephrys may still offer Twisting Nether if the opponent has played Loatheb.
• Zephrys sometimes does not offer the same cards when a double-Battlecry effect is in play, such as with Brann Bronzebeard or Spirit of the Shark, simply because hand size is changing in between wishes.^{[28][78][99][100]} Additionally, if a double-Battlecry effect is active, Zephrys does not know how to chain his Battlecries.^[101]
• Zephrys never offers cards for "unforced trading",^[102][103] unless Zephrys is calculating lethal through enemy Taunt minions with cards like Savage Roar or Bloodlust, or if Crazed Alchemist is involved as a single-target option.
• Zephrys is able to offer silence cards in certain strange situations, which seems to be a bug.
• Zephrys sees Titan minions as regular minions with stats. Zephrys would think that the Titans could attack, would not see the titan abilities, or their exhausted state, and would offer options accordingly.^[106]

Lethal[edit source]

• Zephrys will always offer cards to allow the player to gain lethal, even options that are unintuitive at first glance.
  • However, since he cannot see what cards are in the player's hand, he can miss lethal chances if the player does not play out their cards first.^[107][108]
  • He will not offer lethal solutions that rely on RNG.^[27][109]
  • He will only offer lethal within the limitations of Zephrys' coding. This page attempts to address all of his algorithm limitations.
• Zephrys is able to find lethal with a Basic or Upgraded Hero Power.^[6][110] Additionally, the modified cost and modified damage/healing of the hero power is also taken into account.^[6]
• Zephrys understands finding lethal with a healing spell such as Healing Touch with Auchenai Soulpriest on the board.^[29] This also works with other healing-into-damage effects, such as with Auchenai Phantasm or Embrace the Shadow.
• Zephrys is able to offer silence when he spots a lethal blocked by Taunt minions.^[15][113]
• Zephrys is able to offer silence if the player has a frozen minion on board capable of giving lethal if it was unfrozen.^[6]
• Zephrys is able to offer silence to reset a friendly minion's stats to gain lethal, getting rid of a set attribute effect.^[114]
• Zephrys is able to offer silence to silence a "Can't attack" minion if it would be lethal if the silenced minion attacks.^[115]
• Zephrys will favor silence cards among potential lethal options to help minimize unwanted interference caused by Deathrattles or other card effects.^[6]
• Zephrys is able to find lethal through fatigue damage.^[116][117] However, before Patch 15.0.4, it was seen that Zephrys could miss finding lethal through fatigue if the opponent had the Warrior hero power. This bug might still exist in certain rare situations.
  • Example: Opponent Warrior hero is at 17 health, taking 10 fatigue damage next turn. Zephrys was not able to offer Gorehowl for lethal.^[28]
• Zephrys is able to find lethal using Prophet Velen's damage modifier effect.^[118]
• Zephrys is able to offer Shadow Madness to be played on an enemy minion for lethal.
• Zephrys is able to offer Crazed Alchemist to be played on a friendly Elusive minion for lethal.^[119]
• Zephrys is able to offer Alexstrasza for lethal if there is 9 mana remaining after playing Zephrys and lethal damage is presented on board after Alexstrasza's effect.
• Zephrys is able to offer Heroic Strike or Inner Demon for a hero with Windfury to find lethal, such as if the hero is equipped with Doomhammer.
• Zephrys is able to offer Pyroblast for lethal next turn if the opponent is at 10 health or below, or can be reduced to 10 health or below in the current turn with the player's current board state, and the opponent's Lifesteal minions, if any, are not able to heal the opponent out of range of a Pyroblast lethal next turn.^[18][90]
• Zephrys does not use active cost-reduction effects to find lethal.
• Zephrys does not offer Tundra Rhino for lethal.^{[122][123][124]}
• Zephrys does not offer Timber Wolf for lethal.^[123][125]
• Zephrys does not offer Blessing of Might for lethal.
• Zephrys does not offer Sinister Strike for lethal.^[126]
• Zephrys does not actively seek out lethal in the current turn if the opponent's hero is immune, such as from the effect of Mal'Ganis,^[127][128] but is able to offer Pyroblast if the opponent is at or below 10 health and they have no Lifesteal minions.^[90]
• Zephrys is able to offer Baron Geddon for its end-of-turn effect that deals 2 damage to all other characters, but will not recognize using a Baron Geddon already on board to deal 2 damage to the enemy hero for achieving lethal.
  • Example: Baron Geddon is on the player's board and the opponent hero is at 8 Health. Zephrys is played with 4 mana remaining. Fireball is not offered for lethal.^[129]

Fixed bugs[edit source]

The following is a very brief list of some documented interactions that have been fixed. For the official patch changes, see #Patch changes.

"Previously, Zephrys valued Deathrattles as summoning a minion with stats equal to the difference in stats between the minion's base stats and the expected stats of a vanilla minion at that mana cost.

Now, instead of evaluating it as summoning a minion, it does something more generic, of adding 'that much value' to the opponent's board. In practice, this produces about the same results, except without the occasional card offered to deal with that extra summoned minion (which doesn't exist)."

Sounds

Play

• ▶️ VO_ULD_001_Male_Djinni_Play_01.wav Your wish is my suggestion.
• ▶️ Zephrys_Play_Stinger.wav <music stinger>

Attack

• ▶️ VO_ULD_001_Male_Djinni_Attack_06.wav Alakazam!
• ▶️ ULD_003_ZephrystheGreat_Attack_Underlay.wav <underlay sound>

Death

• ▶️ VO_ULD_001_Male_Djinni_Death_01.wav <death sound>
• ▶️ ULD_003_ZephrystheGreat_Death_Underlay.wav <underlay sound>

Lore

With the League of E.V.I.L. and its crew of calamitous lackeys, the League of Explorers equipped with archaeological artifacts, and the mystical mummies and monsters of Uldum, the desert sands have never hosted such a party of powerhouse prestidigitators and mischief-makers. Among those most powerful stands Zephrys the Great. While at a glance most would see nothing but a mild-mannered medium, Zephrys the Great is capable of divining and manifesting precisely what is needed in any given scenario.

Once this dune-dwelling diviner is played, the state of the game will be carefully analyzed and Zephrys will attempt to conjure exactly what you need to swing the game back in your favor or clench a decisive victory!^[145]

Unique to Hearthstone, Zephrys is a djinn.

A djinn is a type of powerful air elemental that can be found in Skywall. They made their first appearance during World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

It was the djinn that gave the tol'vir back their immortality as creatures of stone, in exchange for their allegiance to Deathwing. The only tribe of tol'vir to accept the offer were the Neferset. When the Orsis tribe refused to serve Deathwing, Al'Akir's djinn buried the city beneath a mighty sandstorm.

Most djinn in World of Warcraft are powerful lieutenants of Al'Akir, though a minor one has also appeared trapped in the Magical Brazier inside the Vortex Pinnacle. A legend among the tol'vir tells of a wicked djinn whom the Ramkahen sought to destroy. In an attempt to prevent his own death, the djinn tried to transfer his spirit into the body of a monkey. He was slain right in the middle of the transference, and only a fraction of his essence had moved over - only enough to possess the monkey's paw.

Trivia

• When Team 5 decided to bring back the "If your deck has no duplicates" mechanic for Saviors of Uldum, they decided that the set needed to have a really cool and exciting card that synergized with the mechanic, on par with Kazakus from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. The design team came up with the idea of a card that would allow players to look through their collection and choose any card to add to their hand, but the gameplay engineering and UI teams immediately protested against this design. The team subsequently tried to brainstorm a version of the card that would be feasible to create, with one of the suggestions being to have the card only show players a couple of cards from their collection. The idea was then born to have the AI select some reasonable choices for players to pick from. The team tried implementing this idea "like five different times", with each iteration a complete reimagining of the previous, until they landed on the version seen in the final set.^[3][5] The team manually went through the Legacy set to pick interesting cards and place them into categories for Zephrys to choose from.^[3]
• The decision to have Zephrys only offer cards from Legacy rather than all sets was made partially for technical reasons, since figuring out how to rate each card involves a lot of manual work for the developers. However, according to Peter Whalen, the bigger reasons stem from design: a big part of playing with Zephrys consists of understanding what he's going to offer and how to maximize the payoff from him, which gets harder the larger the card pool is and the weirder the cards in it are. Legacy provide a versatile mix of removal, AoE, minions, and situational cards while also being fairly simple and well-known to most players, whereas expansions tend to consist of a lot more niche and situational cards. Legacy have the added perk of having fewer extreme cards that could make Zephrys frustrating to play against. Furthermore, only selecting cards from Legacy rather than all sets also means that players don't have to relearn the card every time a new expansion comes out.^[146][147]
  • The developers briefly discussed allowing Zephrys to Discover Hall of Fame cards when he's played in Wild. However, they found that the payoff wasn't quite worth it and that it's easier for them to maintain Zephrys and for players to predict what cards he's going to offer if his effect is the same across both Standard and Wild formats.^[148]
• According to Chadd Nervig, one of the main designers of the card, Zephrys the Great required the most amount of development work and the largest team effort in helping to design, quality-assure, and polish the card for official release.^[5][149]
• According to Alec Dawson, a game designer on the Hearthstone team, Zephrys was the card that the team worked on the most in the history of the game.^[150]
• Zephrys has over 1000 lines of code running behind the scenes; typically, a card has around 2-20 lines of code, maybe even 50.^[5] The code only takes milliseconds to run to evaluate the player's board state to offer the player cards.^[5]
• Zephrys was continually updated with changes made to the Basic and Classic sets while he was in Standard.^[151] Once Zephrys left Standard and moved to Wild, he remained as is.^[152]
• Zephrys the Great was first revealed on July 31, 2019 in the official Card Reveal Livestream for Saviors of Uldum. An official Theorycrafting Livestream was then held the next day in which six content creators were invited to theorycraft decks and do battle against one another at Blizzard HQ.^[157]
• In the Tavern Brawl Three Wishes, players could play around with 0-mana-cost cards of Zephrys' effect: First Wish, Second Wish, and Third Wish.
• Zephrys' effect is also found on the treasure card Zephrys's Lamp in the Tombs of Terror adventure. A special and very rare treasure card called Sack of Lamps is able to give many such Zephrys's Lamps to the player in a single turn.
• Zephrys' effect is also found on the card The Perfect Idea in the Galakrond's Awakening adventure. Two copies of the card are contained within Commander Elise's deck which the player plays with in two separate encounters: the third encounter of the first League of Explorer's chapter against Kriziki the Winged, and the second encounter of the last League of Explorer's chapter against Waxrider Togwaggle. The player is able to freely experiment with Zephrys' effect using this card since it shuffles itself back into the player's deck after it is used to discover "the perfect card".
• Zephrys the Great's Diamond form depicts the card forms of Tirion Fordring, Fireball and Boulderfist Ogre.

Gallery

• 

  Zephrys the Great, full art

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Patch changes

Card changes

Bug fixes and other changes

References

External links

• The History of Zephrys: Interview with Hearthstone Game Designer Chadd Nervig - The Angry Chicken podcast. (2019-08-23). YouTube. 
• Interview with Hearthstone Game Designer Alec Dawson on Zephrys - InvenGlobal. (2019-08-18). 
• PlayHearthstone
• HSReplay.net
• Hearthpwn