Trading Post: TP feels like the slowest trasher of all. I've never thought about skipping Sea Hag only because of it. With support from Hunting Party that's super good to trash curses. But otherwise... would you get 2 TP here if your opponent goes Sea Hag and you've got no support to play TP more often?
Young Witch: I think this depends heavily on the board the bane card. I guess sometimes you want Sea Hag instead of YW, sometimes both.
Trader: Ugh. I don't know. I think I'd get Sea Hag and Trader.
Rebuild: I'm not sure you don't want Sea Hag at all. You probably don't want to open with it. But maybe you want it over your fourth or fifth Silver.
Soothsayer: This is a tough call for me. I think Soothsayer is "strange", I often can't evaluate its strength well, so I'm not sure about this one. Again, I guess you might want both.
I'll stand behind Trading Post, Trader, and Soothsayer. They're some of the more speculative entries on the list but I still think they belong.
I didn't consider the possibility of Scheme being the bane for YW, maybe that means it's off the list. I didn't put a ton of thought into it, I was just hoping to come up with an approximate number.
Rebuild: hmm, this might be a slight oversimplification. Maybe you usually want both. Hmm.
In any case, if you remove just two things from the list, you're still below 50% for when you want Sea Hag. I'm looking for an approximation here by making a very conservative estimate, I really didn't want people to look too much more into it: obviously optimal play depends very much on the other cards on the board but that isn't what this thread is about, I'm sharing my guts with you and trying to back it up by some quick calculations on a napkin.
I don't know much about Sea Hag, but the fact that IGG rushes are a strategy you must always consider as soon as IGG is on the board to me means that it's an A. It might be that IGG isn't viable sometimes, but the fact that you can't afford to not think about it speaks for itself. I think it changes how you think about the board, and that makes it a key card in my opinion. But maybe i'm thinking about this other than intended.
This is exactly the conventional wisdom I want to challenge. IGG rush is bad enough that I don't think it deserves this kind of consideration. People think it's super-fast and super-unstoppable, but it totally isn't either of those things.
I just want to point something out: I'm the one making simplifications and you're the one putting in more details and thoughtful insight. I'm truly enjoying this moment. <3
You make several good points. If your opponent doesn't go for the trashing that's available (or in any way builds a deck that's vulnerable to Sea Hag) then of course you should pick it up in the midgame once you're thin and you'll be able to wreck them. This goes for almost anything that says "Attack" on it and some things that don't.
On the other hand, for-funsies, since I know you're a fan of this kind of argument (even though it means absolutely nothing), let's try this:
Force Chapel and Sea Hag into a kingdom, randomize the other 8 cards and stuff. Do this, uhh, 55 times. How many of those kingdoms would you say Chapel/Sea Hag is a better opening than Chapel/Silver (or maybe Chapel/some other card) on a 4/3 opening? Without doing this, my guess is that your number is less than 10, and probably less than 5. If I got a Sea Hag, it would be a few turns in, after I'm thin and drawing, AND I see that it's actually going to hurt my opponent more than it hurts me. I'm not any of those things on turn 2.
