Emperor and Summoning Portal interaction

Hey guys

late last night I was messing around with some a wild warlock when I stumbled across the dread steer + defile interaction. I know dreadsteed was changed but I found some videos pre-nerf

anyway, I got the idea to try a knife juggler + necrotic geist OTK in wild after seeing Hysteria’s video. 

So, the combo is as follows: Summoning Portal, Knife Juggler, Necrotic Geist, 2x Deathspeaker, Defile, Summoning Portal Tuskarr Fisherman. As long as you get 4-5 discounted it’s fine.

Here’s  link to both the Hysteria video to see the combo and the wiki. (Under notes in wiki)

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Summoning_Portal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0II_uz5UwAc&feature=share

You drop Emperor hoping to discount the deathspeakers, defile, and Geist. The combo takes advantage of the discount from Emperor while also getting a 2 mana Summoning Portal discount. According to the HS wiki, and is consistent with Hysteria’s video, this combination can produce 0 cost minions, as the Summoning Portal effect is applied first and then the Emperor one. Basically, you’ll be playing the 2 and 3 mana pieces for free....or so I thought. You drop the portal, geist, then juggler. After that, you give immunity to both juggler and geist, and apply +1 spell power to either. Casting defile after this creates a loop with Necrotic Geists effect that will kill your opponent no question. Although defile can cast only 14 times, it’s way more than enough for the number of knives being shot. 

I’ve set this up three times and Summoning Portal will not make the minions cost 0 even with the Emperor combination. If you read the wiki and watch the video, you’ll see that the minions cost 0. I watched the video a few times now, and I don’t see any other way he could’ve gotten 0 cost minions. Looking at his discounts, he only managed to get a single tick. Each time I set this combo up, none of the minions will cost 0. I know Summoning Portal is supposed to keep minion cost at 1, but the wiki states that when used with Emperor, the minions will cost 0 if they cost 3. Again, this is what happens in Hysteria’s combo, but for some reason my minions aren’t behaving this way. 

I can’t find any evidence that the way these card interactions has changed or been patched. The only thing I can think of it is that blizzard silently changed it to prevent another OTK. 

Think it might have to do with recent patch changes, but I can't remember when exactly.

One of the comments mentions it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/wildhearthstone/comments/c805d5/new_patch_nerfs_sn1psn4p_otk_warlock/

I believe the order of play matters here: because you play the Portal after Thaurissan's effect, then it takes precedence.

I've played the same combo for well over a year now and yes the interactions were changed. It wasn't changed during the last one or two patches, but at some point before that and the change was unannounced. One day I played the deck had Emperor hit the minimum number of targets I've always needed him to hit and suddenly found that while trying to do the combo that I no longer had the mana to complete it anymore. For years Summoning Portal would reduce 2 cost cards to 0 mana if they were first reduced by Emperor and after the stealth hotfix this no longer happens. You can still complete the combo but it is clunkier now and you need to use Drakkari Enchanter to hit a bunch of your combo pieces to have the mana to execute it.