How bizarre, just had a game in ranked against a mage and by christ it was a really good game, no complaints there - but even though it said 'DEFEAT' for me I didn't lose a star, because we both died on the same turn by my move.
I thought I had him on more than one occasion earlier on, assumed he had Flamestrike which of course he did but I couldn't quite goad it out of him, but he did burn it off fairly cheaply in the end with a semi-goad. (If he had it fair enough, if not I'll use the cards I have down was my thinking.)
Turns out he had two Flamestrikes which I was semi-expecting so no disaster when it came, figured I could still win.
In then went down to the wire and he seemed to up his game quite a lot plus he seemed to be geared towards late game plays, properly down to the wire, we were both down in single figure health for our heroes, trading on the board with some degree of intricacy, nipping health off each other where we could, no killer blows available.
In the end, in all fairness, he did get the better of me and was set up for a winning move on his next turn, and we both had just 2 health left! I got an Abomination dealt into my hand along with a Shadowflame I'd been holding onto for quite a while but had never really got the chance to play, and that was all I had to work with, I'd done a very chancy life tap at 6 health but of course couldn't do it at 2 as it'd kill me.
There's no way I can win at this point, I can't clear the board, I can't do any direct damage to him, I have basically lost, so I play a 'total annihilation' move, my Abomination goes down and I Shadowflame it (Shadowflame is 'destroy a friendly minion and deal its attack damage to all enemy minions') which kills the Abomination, deals his damage via Shadowflame to his two minions (which is not what I'm interested in) and the death of the Abomination does 2 damage to ALL characters so it kills both of our heroes simultaneously.
I got the 'DEFEAT' screen but I didn't lose a star, does that mean he didn't gain one? Is that effectively a draw?
Either way I remain at Rank 19 after what was a really good game