Hearthstone Heroes Of Warcraft / Tropes C to D

Tropes found in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
Tropes A to B | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to L | Tropes M to R | Tropes S to Z

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C

• Call-Back:
  • After the player defeats Gothik the Harvester in Naxxramas, an annoyed Kel'Thuzad will question why Gothik simply doesn't come back as Spectral Gothik. Come the Kel'Thuzad vs. Rafaam Tavern Brawl, Gothik appears as a card, and his deathrattle is summoning himself as Spectral Gothik for the opponent.
  • The bosses in the Knights of the Frozen Throne missions use cards from Curse of Naxxramas... including boss-only cards like Deathcharger.
  • The Warlock's classic set staple minion, the Voidwalker, says "As you command..." as it's attack callout. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan's Krul the Unshackled (a Voidlord, a much more powerful form of Voidwalker) has "As I command..." as his own attack callout.
  • Many of the Whispers of the Old Gods cards are corrupted versions of classic minions, meaning call-backs to their old lines. For example, Worgen Infiltrator's "I smell blood" and "First kill!" become "I TASTE BLOOD!" and "KILLING SPREE!". There's also a more hidden one, with Forlorn Hunter mirroring Ram Wrangler's entry quote "The beasts obey me" into "The beasts betrayed me".
  • Each of the EVIL factions in Rise of Shadows bring back a mechanic from the set they debuted in. Dr. Boom has an Omega card, Rafaam is based on the Golden Monkey, Lazul has a Forbidden spell, Togwaggle has an Unidentified card, and Hagatha uses a non-keyworded version of Echo^note Since the team didn't want to bring back old keywords, and the other Witchwood mechanics either didn't work as one card (Odd and Even) or weren't in flavour for Hagatha (transforming worgen).
• Came Back Strong: Several Legendary minions in Ashes of Outland are above average early-game minions which have a Deathrattle that shuffles in a Prime version of themselves into the deck, with higher cost and a powerful effect to match.
• Canon Foreigner: While Hearthstone started out with most of its cards and legendaries being based on Warcraft lore characters, later on it added more and more original characters specifically created for Hearthstone. The Grand Tournament was the first to introduce original legendaries, (Bolf Ramshield, Skycap'n Kragg, and Nexus-Champion Saraad), then added more original characters that were integrated into its own lore, like the League of Explorers and the three gangs of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, or even alternate versions of lore characters, like an "uncorrupted" version of Ragnaros or a younger, eccentric Medivh. Nowadays, it's more common for an expansion to have mostly original legendaries over existing Warcraft lore characters.
• Canon Immigrant: A number of Hearthstone originals did manage to sneak their way into World of Warcraft over time. The very first Hearthstone character to be added into WoW was Sir Finley Mrrrglton, and Morgl the Oracle and Skycap'n Kragg followed suit. Another thing to note is that the Tortollans, an entirely new race solely created for Journey to Un'Goro, became their own full-fledged NPC species in Battle for Azeroth.
• Cap Raiser: Wildheart Guff costs 5 Mana. When played, he increases the player's mana Cap from 10 to 20.
• Card Battle Game: The Trope Codifier. While digital collectible card games had existed beforehand, Hearthstone features several qualities and quirks that later card games would come to frequently replicate, such as the ability to delete copies of cards, especially duplicates, to generate a resource used to obtain cards, and a resource system similar to that Magic: The Gathering, but with one mana automatically generated every turn instead of having to rely on specifically dedicated resource cards that had to be drawn and played.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Post-Rise of Shadows, any nuance and subtlety the villains from over the years could've had is thrown out in favour of an over-the-top revenge scheme on "the good guys". They have a group called the League of E.V.I.L. and constantly go on tirades about villainous they are. Of course, we wouldn't have it any other way.
• Card Cycling:
  • "Darkshire Librarian" is a minion card that makes the player discard a random card when played, then draws a new card when it dies.
  • "Plot Twist" is a warlock spell that causes the player to shuffle all cards in their hand back into their deck, then draw back to their original hand size, which makes the "Supreme Archeology" quest more achievable, since it needs to draw 20 cards before a Hero Power upgrade effect is used.
  • "Secret Passage" is a rogue spell that makes the player unable to play the other cards in their hand for 1 turn, drawing 4 new cards from the deck to replace them. At the end of the turn, any of the 4 cards that were not played are shuffled back into the deck, and the player regains access to their original hand.
  • "Glide" is a demon hunter spell that allows the player to shuffle their hand into their deck and draw 4 new cards. If it's an "Outcast", a.k.a the left-most or right-most card in the hand when played, then the other player is forced to do the same.
  • The "United in Stormwind" expansion added cards with the "Tradeable" effect, allowing the player to spend one mana to shuffle them into the deck and draw a new card.
• Cast from Hit Points: Warlocks commonly sacrifice their health for spells and summons, including their hero power. Can be mitigated in part by Life Drain spells.
  • The Imp Master minion summons a 1/1 Imp at the end of every turn at the cost of losing one health.
  • Rogue and Warrior^note and Paladin and Druid, to a lesser extent often use their hp as secondary resource, where they will tank the damage and remove enemy minions with their Weapon. Smacking their face a few times can deter them from doing so.
  • Literally the battlecry ability from the Warlock legendary card Cho'Gall (the next spell you cast this turn will cost hit points instead of mana crystals).
  • The Warrior spell Reckless Flurry is a variant that casts from the user's Armor, removing all of it to damage every minion for an equal amount.
• Catchphrase: Every card has a line for when it's summoned and when it's selected, and some have become quite popular amongst players and streamers.
  Defias Ringleader: This is our town, scrub!
  Defias Bandit: Yeah, beat it!
  • As a Meta example, many streamers have their own catch phrases and character tics.
    Trump: [something doesn't go his way] Oh the humanity!
    [every single card in his 'Trump reviews Trump reviews] Turns out that...
    Amaz: [pulls an insanely lucky draw while pumping his arms repeatedly] Yes! Yes! Yes!
• The Cavalry: In Descent of Dragons, The League of Explorers are helped by the Blue, Green, Blue, and Bronze dragonflights, with Ysera leading them, and the League of E.V.I.L. are helped by the Black, Twilight, and Scourge dragons, with Deathwing leading the pack.
• Cement Shoes: The Warrior spell Sleep with the Fishes displays this... which, funnily enough, is a Murloc. Even his expression was a confused shrug.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Knights of the Frozen Throne is the darkest, most serious set to date, being based around an alternate reality where the Lich King won and turned the nine original heroes into Death Knights. Even the trailer lacks a traditional song - it's instead about Jaina giving a crazed monologue about how awesome it is to be powerful. It's also the first set to make a genuine attempt at storytelling, using various web-media to provide backstory and promote the expansion, with special mention going to the elaborate, three-part webcomic. The actual expansion lightens things up just a bit by portraying the Lich King as a comically serious Fourth-Wall Observer, though.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • "Core set" Murlocs are similar to their World of Warcraft counterparts: cheap, semi-sentient creatures that rely on crude Zerg Rush tactics to overwhelm their enemies. Then we got Murloc Knights in armor, Murloc explorers with a posh English accent, Murloc inquisitors and Silver Hand recruits, Murloc Ninjas... It's gotten to the point where, while Murlocs are already one of the most iconic Warcraft creatures, they've taken on an entirely new life in Hearthstone.
  • Dr. Boom started as a no-personality character whose only voice lines were an Evil Laugh and a grunt. When he hit Breakout Character status, the team went back and defined his personality, settling on a Ditzy Genius with a short fuse and nonsensical motives.
• Cherry Tapping: Using Tess' Scavenge hero power before any spells have been played gives you the Small Rock spell, which costs zero mana and deals a single point of damage. While generally fairly useless, it becomes downright lethal when fighting the Whisperer, whose gimmick is that every spell has Echo, meaning that all you need is to get a Small Rock and then keep throwing rocks him until he dies.
• Chromatic Rock Paper Scissors: In Mercenaries mode, Protectors (red) beat Fighters (green) which beat Casters (blue) which beat Protectors.
• Cloak of Defense: The "Robe of Protection" card grants all minions on its side of the board the effect "Can't be targeted by spells or hero powers" while it remains in play. However, this is a downplayed version of this trope; the card doesn't make minions immune to spells and they can still be affected by spells that hit everyone.
• Coconut Meets Cranium: Implied. There's a coconut tree on the Stranglethorn battlefield. If you click on the coconut a few times, it falls down and you hear a monkey screech, so it must have been hit on the head.
• Color-Coded Item Tiers: A semi-subversion. Cards follow the World of Warcraft colour scheme to denote their rarity, however actual card power is almost completely disconnected from their rarity, which is more a measure of usability. Common cards are usually Boring, but Practical, Rares are mildly situational, Epics are highly situational and Legendaries have very exotic effects, from "deck defining" (e.g. Reno Jackson) to "if this ends up on your side of the board you lose the game" (looking at you, Majordomo Executus).
• Combat Breakdown: It's very possible for a match between two control decks to boil down to an endurance match after both sides have exhausted all their cards, reducing both players to tapping their hero powers and watching as they slowly get whittled down by fatigue damage until one drops dead.
• Combining Mecha:
  • Mimiron's Head combines with two or more other Mechs to form V-07-TR-0N.
  • Emulated with the Magnetic keyword in The Boomsday Project, where Magnetic Mechs can fuse with adjacent Mechs, bestowing their stats and abilities.
• Combos: There are many possible card combos that can be pulled off; for example, a common Mage one is to Polymorph a high-stat threat (turning it into a 1/1 Sheep) then finishing it off with a 1-damage Fireblast (always available as a Hero Power), the Paladin can use Equality to set everything to 1 health before nuking the opponent's board with Consecration's 2 damage to all enemies, and (before its nerf in April 2016) Druid's use of Force of Nature into Savage Roar to deal 14 damage from an empty board was so prevalent and powerful that it was often simply referred to as "The Combo". It's also a named mechanic for Rogue-exclusive cards, which gain an additional ability if another card has been played before them in the same turn (although the previous card doesn't actually have to synergize with the Combo card).
• Combo Breaker:
  • Mogor the Ogre and Mayor Noggenfogger effects randomize targeting. Once they're on the board, all rules about efficient trading is thrown out of the window. You'll most likely want to eliminate them before trying to perform your combo; otherwise, good luck.
  • Nozdormu limits both players' turn to 15 seconds each. If you are relying on combos with significant animation time, Nozdormu can easily throw a wrench to your well-laid plan. Obviously, aggro decks are less affected by him.
  • Originally, Hearthstone lacked cards that can be played during the opponent's turn aside from Secrets, thus it was frustratingly easy for the player to hoard the cards that constitute their game-winning combo and unleash it with their opponent unable to do anything. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan introduced cards that directly affect the opponent's hand, starting with the Dirty Rat, an overstatted Taunt minion who can drag out the opponent's key minions from their hand, ready to be removed to disrupt their combo. On a similar note, Rise of Shadows introduced two more cards: Hecklebot is similar to Dirty Rat but pulls from the deck instead of the hand, while Unseen Saboteur forces your opponent to cast a random spell from their hand.
  • Warlock have gained a multitude of cards that can destroy cards from the opponent's deck like Gnomeferatu and Ticketus and cards they're holding like Immolate. The most successful stories involve these cards destroying the opponent's win condition before they can even play it, causing them to concede almost immediately.
  • Mindbreaker Illucia is a Priest legendary which used to have the effect of swapping your hand and deck with the opponent's for a turn. Should the opponent be holding a combo piece in their hand, you can play it yourself to waste it. It was nerfed to merely copying the opponent's hand for a turn.
  • Theotar, the Mad Duke Discovers a card in each player's hand and swaps them. Even though this is technically a card-neutral effect, it can potentially steal a game-winning card right out of the opponent's hand while giving them a dud.
• A Commander Is You: Due to the gameplay of Battlegrounds revolving around building up a persistent band of minions and having them fight it out, tribe synergies and tribal buffs are much more relevant than in the regular game, giving each tribe different playstyles as well.
  • Murlocs: Elitist, Technical, and Gimmick. Contrary to their usual playstyle, Battleground Murlocs are focused more on buffs and minion synergies than on overwhelming numbers due to the combat and board mechanics. They're also the only tribe with access to the Poisonous keyword, letting them offset their Attack stats by giving their minions the ability to one-shot opponents indiscriminately. Their tribe has many board-wide Battlecry buffs like Coldlight Seer and King Bagurgle, which can reach astronomical levels with Brann Bronzebeard. However, they have no access to Taunts, meaning that all of your Murlocs will be equally vulnerable to the enemy's powerhouses, and their early game power is weak.
  • Demons: Elitist, Brute, and Ranger. Demons are great at building huge beatsticks by consuming minions in Bob's Tavern for an early-game stat boost and scaling Wrath Weaver, Annihilan Battlemaster, or Bigfernal in the late game to crush the enemy with brute force. They also have a number of minions that summon weak demons mid-battle to use them as Red Shirts to activate other cards like Soul Juggler to ping the opponent's board or Impatient Doomsayer to generate cards. They have plenty amount of Taunt minions to help redirect attacks to huge minions or fodders for value. Their weakness is their lack of other keywords like Divine Shield, making them vulnerable to Divine Shield and Poisonous minions which can undermine their raw power.
  • Beasts: Spammer, Brute, and Specialist. Beasts are heavily focused around Deathrattle effects, including token-spamming Deathrattles like Rat Pack and Ghastcoiler and stat buffers like Goldrinn, combining both to turn what would otherwise be Cannon Fodder into legitimate threats. Combined with Monstrous Macaw, they can activate these powerful Deathrattles multiple times. Because of their spam-heavy nature, attack and death order is important, otherwise they risk clogging up their board, and they're heavily dependent on key minions staying alive.
  • Mechs: Balanced, Turtle, and Generalist. Mechs have a little bit of everything: Tavern-phase buffs, snowballing minions, and token generation, but aren't the best at any of those. Their main advantage is their staying power due to their wide array of Divine Shield and Deathrattle minions, letting them stall out the enemy by reapplying Divine Shield with Deflect-o-Bot and Holy Mecharel or resurrect high-value targets with Kangor's Apprentice and Omega Buster. Their downsides are a lack of immediate power and relatively low health; sniping their key minions will put Mechs at a severe disadvantage in combat, and heavily-buffed armies can out-grind them with sheer stats.
  • Dragons: Elitist, Turtle, and Specialist. Many Dragons have effects that scale off the number of dragons you control, such as Red Whelp. They also have cards with long-term power, like Razorgore, the Untamed and Kalecgos, Arcane Aspect which build up stats over multiple turns, and minions that snowball in-combat like Glyph Guardian and Draconid Enforcer. On top of having large piles of stats, Nadina the Red also gives them Divine Shield to make them even more durable. However, most of their scaling cards are in the late game and they gain stat at a steady and relatively slow pace, making them weak in the mid-game.
  • Pirates: Balanced, Ranger, and Economist. Early game, Pirates lean towards Spammer and rely on fodder and attack buffs to clean up the board, but late game they can have some huge scaling beatsticks, although they lack the staying power of Murlocs or Dragons. Pirates heavily capitalize on effects that activate on attack and Overkill effects, which makes them reliant on striking as early as possible. They also have minions that directly aid gold economy and effects that activate from adding new minions to their hand.
  • Elementals: Elitist, Brute, and Economist. Many Elemental synergy cards rely on playing an Elemental to buff minions, even ones you haven't bought yet, and have ways to help find Elementals or generate them. Their lineup mainly consists of scaling beatsticks that continue to grow with more Elementals played. They also have multiple sellable card generators and ways to gain free Refreshes. Their main weakness is the lack of access to stronger keywords and are reliant on rolling Elementals at a regular pace.
  • Quillboars: Balanced, Generalist, and Gimmick. The tribe's centerpiece are Blood Gems, a card which gives +1/+1 to a minion. While Blood Gems aren't restricted to buffing Quillboars and are a modest way of gaining early-game buffs, there are minions which improve the strength of Blood Gems or trigger an effect when a Blood Gem is played on them. The tribe needs to keep a balance of Blood Gem generators and Blood Gem synergizing minions to maximize their effectiveness, but aren't overly reliant on other Quillboars and can work rather well with other tribes. They are most powerful early game for their quick scaling, which slows down in the late game without ways to improve Blood Gems.
  • Nagas: Elitist, Technical, and Gimmick. Nagas have an exclusive keyword called Spellcraft, which adds a spell that gives a temporary buff each turn. Spellcraft spells are more incentivized to use on Naga minions, as many of them also have synergy effects related to Spellcraft, some of which that only target other Nagas. Spellcraft spells provide a big advantage in the early game, giving Naga comps high tempo, and are very versatile in their application, but they need to get those key Spellcraft minions fast to ensure they can win later.
• Computers Are Fast: You may notice that if you decide to concede from an unwinnable board situation against AI, the AI will still take its sweet time to run through the entire attack/spell casting routine for almost a minute before your hero portrait explodes. This is because the AI queues up the commands in a matter of split-second, so by the time you get to see the actions, the AI would've already finished clicking the End Turn button long ago. This can be a problem, both subjective and real; see Game-Breaking Bug below.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Curse of Naxxramas expansion introduces single-player "boss" fights. The normal version of these bosses already have hero powers that are just too cheap^note Compare Anub'Rekhan's 3/1 Minion for 2 mana with Paladin's 1/1 Minion for the same cost, for example, in addition to cheap exclusive spells and several cards with no card limit ^note as in, breaking the two-copies-per-deck rule, and the heroic versions are far worse — they start with much more health than a player and devastating abilities that cost little to no mana.
  • Another example of the computer being able to blatantly eschew the rules takes place during the battle with Kel'Thuzad: If you're a Hunter and you attempt to play the the Animal Companion card, instead of getting any of your normal three options, you will instead get a 1/1 Mr. Bigglesworth.^note That's Kel'Thuzad's pet kitty. That's not the cheating part, however - if you manage to give Mr. Bigglesworth Taunt with a card like Houndmaster or Defender of Argus, KT's minions will ''bypass'' Mr. Bigglesworth to continue hitting you directly, as though he isn't taunting at all! Though considering that said kitty belongs to their master, it makes sense that they would refuse to kill it.^note It's because Mr. Bigglesworth is permanently stealthed (but the player can't see it); silencing him then giving him Taunt would force Kel'Thuzad's minions to attack him.
  • Kel'Thuzad also instantly ends your turn when you destroy all his armor, even if you aren't done playing your other cards.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion in the first battle against Rafaam: he actually steals your deck from you, forcing you to use a (hilariously underpowered) spare deck you get from Elise instead. Hope you didn't bring all your strongest legendaries with you. It doesn't help that his hero power is a permanent version of Unstable Portal, a card that's earned its place in the Game-Breaker section.
  • The Heroic mode challenge against The Crone in One Night in Karazhan involves you needing to protect an 0/10 minion named Dorthee or she will One-Hit Kill you with a 100 damage tornado hero power (it's all a reference to The Wizard of Oz). If you don't finish her by turn 8, she will cast Twisting Nether and kill you. You can delay a couple of turns with cards that make her spells cost more, make her hero power cost more or the Ancestral Spirit shaman spell that re-summons Dorthee when killed, but it was soon proven the encounter has been hard-coded to keep giving her effectively infinite Twisting Nethers.
  • Sindragosa in the Knights of the Frozen Throne mission has a card called Unchained Magic, which deals 3 damage per spell you have in your hand. But she'll never use them if you don't have any spells in your hand. But as soon as you keep one in your hand, she won't hesitate to use them. She somehow just knows.
  • The Rod of Roasting is a Dungeon Run treasure that Pyroblasts random targets until someone dies. Players have noted that, when used against final bosses, it has a suspicious tendency to get the boss down to 1 hit away from death only to turn around and Pyroblast the player's face nearly a dozen times in a row, in direct defiance of probability.
• Continuity Nod: The various pieces of music played while the matchmaker reel is spinning are taken from the Warcraft II soundtrack (still considered by many as one of the greatest RTS soundtracks of all time).
• Cool, but Inefficient: Many "cheese" or gimmick decks that depend on a single trick or just throw all caution to the wind. These usually will not hold up against a well-crafted Boring, but Practical deck but are very entertaining if they actually succeed. One example is the 35 legendary deck (with Prince Malchezaar to shuffle in 5 more legendaries to your deck). Even remotely competitive? Heck no. Fun? Heck yes.
• Cosmetic Award: After achieving level 10 with heroes, you no longer get basic cards with each level and instead get golden versions of the same cards. They're neat-looking and have some additional animation, but they're purely cosmetic and can take a long time to unlock the ones in the highest levels.
• Counterattack: If an aggro deck is Attack! Attack! Attack!, then a control deck is this. Playing a late game deck usually requires one to think like an aikido master: patiently waiting for an opponent to strike so they can counter it and make them pay for it (one example being the Paladin Wild Pyromancer + Equality combo, which uses 2 cards to clear the board of many more enemy cards). It's not unheard for late game decks to spend turns 1-9 dealing minimal damage to the enemy hero so that they have time to set up a huge counterattack.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Some cards can only be considered useful when very specific conditions are met. Hemet Nesingwary^note Battlecry: Destroy a Beast, for example, is a notoriously bad Legendary minion because his Battlecry is only useful if your opponent has a beast on the board and his stats are terrible to boot.
  • To a lesser extent, "Gimmick Decks" are decks built specifically around a certain special gimmick (all cards must have random effects, only Legendary minions, having your win condition tied to a very specific combo, etc.) and are usually pretty bad compared to more balanced deck.
• Critical Existence Failure: As a saying among the Collectible Card Game community goes: "The only health that matters is the difference between one and zero". This applies especially to Priests, who can keep healing their minions as long as their HP does not reach zero by their turn. Of course, you have cards like Molten Giants, which only get cheaper the more damaged you are, that encourage you to take risks without getting yourself killed.
  • The Lightspawn card for priests averts this by having its attack always be equal to its health. Of course, this works both ways, and boosting the health of a Lightspawn is an easy way to make it a powerhouse.
  • Some heroes can have Armor, which stacks on top of your hero's Health, and in most cases just acts as extra life. There are rare circumstances where the hero can have zero or less Health from a spell, but have Armor stacked on top immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, it does not matter how armored up your hero is if their Health is zero or less, you're still dead, and that extra life is worthless.
  • The legendary minion Yogg'Saron was nerfed by being subjected to this—his battlecry is to cast random spells on random targets equal to the number of spells his summoner previously cast throughout the game. Pre-nerf, the number of spells was guaranteed, but post-nerf the spells understandably stop the moment one of them kills, silences, or "bounces" (returns to the player's hand) Yogg himself.
• Critical Failure: It is entirely possible to accidentally hit yourself with your own damage spells, most common if you try and change your mind after selecting the spell and target your own Hero as opposed to your hand to cancel the action by mistake.
  • The same thing can happen if you summon Yogg-Saron: It's entirely possible for the target of a random Fireball or Pyroblast to be his own summoner!
  • Anything that summons a random minion can potentially screw you over, like getting Bomb Squad from your Firelands Portal or Rotface spitting out a dormant The Darkness. The classic example of this is a Piloted Shredder ejecting a Doomsayer; this one got a Call-Back on Validated Doomsayer's flavor text.
• Crutch Character:
  • "Rush" or "Aggro" decks apply heavy pressure from turn 1 by overwhelming the opponent with lots of minions and burst damage. The downside is that these kind of decks need to dominate early on and force an early win before they run out of steam and the opponent can roll out their late game cards.
  • Whizbang the Wonderful is a legendary that changes your deck into a random preconstructed deck, selected from a list of 18 — two for each class. The decks presented are of average strength and are easily defeated by more optimized lists, but for the cost of crafting Whizbang you can access a multitude of different decks, each stocked with many epic and legendary cards, leading to a total crafting cost that far exceeds Whizbang's own. This makes Whizbang an excellent avenue for experiencing many different decks at a relatively low dust cost. With the implementation of new player ranks (50 to 26), Whizbang would be banned from those lower ranks to avoid one-sided games in that environment.
  • One of the reasons Demon Hunters absolutely dominated the meta when they first debuted was because it was very easy to build a top tier deck with them. Completing the Demon Hunter Prologue rewarded you with 20 cards, which includes two Legendaries, half of them being essential in almost all Demon Hunter decks. There's also the fact that since they were new, they needed less cards between sets to complete their deck. That, on top of having cards that were plain broken to begin with, low or high ranks, even in Wild, Demon Hunters were everywhere due to how easy it was to climb the ladder with them.
  • The Acolyte of C'thun in the "Battlegrounds" mode. Early on, it's a 2/2 reborn minion - essentially a 4/3 minion. The first few rounds make it almost unstoppable as there are no minions in Tavern Tier 1 that it doesn't at least tie with 1-on-1 (barring a Hero Powers). But being unaspected, it cannot be buffed easily without a lot of luck - and its reborn nature means that the second it dies, it will be revived with 2/1. This makes it almost impossible to build around, so it's usually thrown out of the way a few rounds in.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • The Ogre cards from GvG have chance to attack a different target than you ordered them to. However, this also makes them able to bypass Taunt minions.
  • The worgen from The Witchwood, who use their werewolf curse to fight off Hagatha.
    Genn Greymane: This curse has become our greatest strength!
• Cute Monster Girl: Artwork for cards depicting female characters tend to be made especially cute, if not outright attractive looking, regardless of their species; trolls, orcs, goblins, gnomes, dwarves, worgen, pandaren, all of their females are depicted in an attractive light. Hearthstone is actually notable amongst Warcraft fans for being the first depiction of a female satyr, with the card Witchwood Piper depicting a cute elfin girl with digitigrade legs ending in hooves, curling goat-like horns, and a leonic tail. Other notable additions by Hearthstone art include gender-dimorphic female kobolds (the few female kobolds in World of Warcraft use the male model), as well as the first official depictions of female sethrak and tol'vir.
• Cutlass Between the Teeth: The Cutthroat Buccaneer is a Ghost Pirate who is depicted holding a cutlass between his teeth.
• Cutting the Knot: Clever outside-the-box thinking can lead players to different, sometimes simpler, solutions to several scenarios in the Puzzle Labs.
• Cycle of Hurting:
  • The Mistress of Pain minion from GvG heals your hero for the amount of damage she deals. In case a player with Auchenai Soulpriest took control of this minion, her healing effect will instead damage the hero... except that counts as another damage done by Mistress, which means she will try to heal the hero and only end up hurting him again, and that counts as yet another damage done, and she tries to heal and ends up hurting again... Long story short, do NOT play a Mistress of Pain with Auchenai Soulpriest lest you die a slow, humiliating death. Word of God is that this is not a bug, but because Lifesteal is to become a more common feature, it will be changed to only activate once as of the release of Knights of the Frozen Throne as opposed to trapping the player in an infinite loop.
  • Archmage Antonidas grants you a Fireball everytime you cast a spell, including those he created. He's most often triggered with Spare Parts to stockpile a few Fireballs to use as finisher, but if you can somehow reduce your mana cost by 4 (four Sorcerer's Apprentice or your enemy playing Millhhouse Manastorm), it's an infinite chain of Fireballs after Fireballs.
  • Defile does 1 damage to all minions, and repeats the process if a minion died this way. With a series of other plays bestowing other minions with Immune, it is possible to, for instance, keep an immune Necrotic Geist and Knife Juggler up while Defile keeps killing the Ghouls that Geist spawns. Geist summons a 2/2 Ghoul when a friendly minion dies, including the Ghouls themselves, causing Knife Juggler to trigger and do a point of damage to an enemy — eventually the opponent if they run out of minions — causing a near-infinite loop of 1-damage pings.^note Defile is hard-capped at 14 activations per cast to prevent an infinite loop in such scenarios. See the Death of a Thousand Cuts entry below for a video demonstrating the loop.
  • Shadowboxer deals 1 damage to an enemy whenever anything is healed. It was a reasonable effect at the time, but with the Lifesteal mechanic that was added 3 years later, if it had Lifesteal, once it effect activated, the damage dealt would activate Lifesteal, which would activate its effect again and again until your hero was at full health, basically turning it into "Deal damage equal to your missing health split randomly among all enemies". In The Boomsday Project, it got nerfed to only activate from allied minions healing to remove this interaction due to the introduction of Zilliax, which can give Lifesteal to any Mech.
  • On the very low chance that a Priest in Wild who's played Raza the Chained^note Reduce your hero power's cost to 0 for the rest of the game if there's no duplicates in your deck manages to obtain a Coldarra Drake^note You can use your hero power any number of times per turn, they can use their Hero Power an unlimited number of times. If they also happen to get a damage dealing Hero Power as well (such as Priest's Shadowform or Voidform, or Mage's basic Fire Bolt), they essentially wins from blowing everything up (provided the player manages to outrun the fuse). This requires some luck as Raza and Coldarra Drake are in different classes, so usually either Priest or Mage would need something such as Kabal Courier to get the needed cards.

D

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Is very possible if playing a Priest and trying to use your Hero Power (normally restore 2 Health) to heal yourself or your minions after playing Auchenai Soulpriest or Shadowform (which causes the Hero Power to damage 2 Health instead). A particularly nasty case is a player forgetting about their Soulpriest on board and dropping Reno Jackson, killing themselves instantly.
  • Many a horror stories where players misclick the Concede button by accident. This was apparently such a major issue that the concede button was recolored red after Knights of the Frozen Throne came out, making it less likely for the player to accidentally press it.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Some cards come with extreme drawbacks to make use of and if you fail to manage these drawbacks, you might as well Concede there and then.
  • Myra's Unstable Element draws your entire deck, filling your hand and instantly putting you into fatigue. Needless to say, playing this too early or without any way to refill your deck would often do more harm than good. As a result, it's most often seen in aggro decks that need all the cards they can get to murder the opponent as quickly as possible and don't care much about fatigue, as if they run out of cards in their hand they've basically already lost.
  • Mecha'Thun requires you to empty your board, hand and deck to make use of his One-Hit Kill Deathrattle. Having an empty hand and deck is tantamount to death sentence in card games, so there's little to no chance of comeback if your gambit is foiled. Of course, most decks with Mecha'thun are built to use his Deathrattle as a win condition by destroying him immediately, rather than simply throwing him out as a Hail Mary.
  • Bonelord Frostwhisper has a Deathrattle that makes your first card every turn cost 0 mana, allowing you to throw out some serious haymakers for free... and you'd better make good use of those free cards, because after that Deathrattle goes off you only have three turns to live.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Invoked with Whispers of the Old Gods. While the last several expansions went the road of Lighter and Softer (Goblins vs Gnomes focus on fun randomness and Mechanic monsters; The Grand Tournament focus on a second Grand Tournament for fame and glory removing of the Lich King context), this expansion brings upon the Old Gods with their corruption and influence to the Hearthstone universe. Just for an examples, compare the lighthearted nature of the cinematic trailers for GvG and TGT to the chilling atmostphere for Whisper. However, the expansion itself is still filled with much of the same humor in other expansions. Cards like Validated Doomsayer and Ragnaros, Lightlord know they're kind of a joke. Also the expansions flavor text is completely silly. And then there's Yogg-Saron ability to cast random spells on random targets, often to hilarious effect.
  • The Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion as a whole can be seen as a darker version of the Goblin vs Gnomes expansion with characters that are ruthless and amoral criminals made up the bulk of the cards released.
  • Exaggerated by the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. Whispers still provide humorous Flavor Text on their flagship Legendaries (i.e, the four Old Gods). There's nothing funny regarding the Flavor Text of Knights' flagship Legendaries, all of them are dead-serious quotes said by the now-undead Heroes.
• A Day in the Limelight: As the Meta goes, cards that barely see play can sometimes become insanely popular as 'Tech' card to counter the Meta. For instance, Big Game Hunter during the reign of the original Dr. Boom, and later Blood Knight is to counter the pre-nerf Giggling Inventor. Alternatively, Blizzard might create a new card specifically to counter the Meta, like Skulking Geist for Jade Idol or Eater of Secrets versus Mysterious Challenger.
• Death Is Dramatic:
  • You would expect nothing less of Jaraxxus, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION!
  • Millhouse Manastorm is a strong contender, with a deathrattle (the literal one, not in-game mechanic!) that lasts for a full 10 seconds, going progressively weaker.
  • In general, any hero's defeat is this. The hero portrait explodes in slow-motion, throwing jagged shards outward, accompanied by a death scream from said hero.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The goal of the game is to establish board control. Once you've established board control, that 1-2 damage minion can deal disproportionate amount of damage through the match.
  • A Knife Juggler that was made immune with Deathspeaker, a 1 Health and 2 Health minion, either a Grim Patron or a immune Necrotic Geist with Spell Damage +1, and Defile (all discounted with Emperor Thaurissan) creates an infinite loop of Defile, repeatedly killing newly spawned minions which causes Knife Juggler to constantly throw 1-damage knives until the opponent is (almost) dead.
  • Pen Flinger is a 1-mana 1/1 with a Battlecry that deals 1 damage, making him stat-wise identical to an Elven Archer, but he has a Spellburst effect that returns him to your hand when you cast a spell. In decks that make heavy use of cheap spells, you can repeat his Battlecry several time over to chip away at the opponent's health. Things got so annoying with this little minion that it was nerfed to only target minions.
• Death or Glory Attack:
  • Several cards can be this. For instance, summoning Deathwing completely clears the board, but requires you to discard your hand. Good when your enemy has few, if any card himself, not so good if he has a removal or Mind Control.
  • The Rod of Roasting, obtained during a Dungeon Run, becomes the epitome of this trope, as it randomly casts Pyroblasts until a hero dies.
• Deck Clogger:
  • Weasel Tunneler and Bad Luck Albatross add weak 1/1 minions to the opponent's deck, leading to wasted draws. Impbalming instantly destroys a minion (and is cheaper than other similar cards), but shuffles 3 1/1 Worthless Imps into your own deck.
  • Some cards are shuffled into the deck and deal damage to the player who draws them. Bomb and Mine can be added to the opponent's deck to make them reluctant to draw more cards, Ancient Curse is shuffled into your own deck as a downside to playing the Ancient Shade, and Corrupted Blood is added to both decks at the same time by Hakkar the Soulflayer.
• Defeat Means Playable: The cards that you get by completing the adventure modes are usually legendaries whom you fight as bosses in those adventures, and the non-legendary cards are sometimes other enemies you fight on your way to said bosses. League of Explorers is a slightly unusual case; four of the legendaries you obtain here (Reno, Elise, Brann and Finley) are your allies in the adventure.
• Deflector Shield: Minions with Divine Shield are impervious to the first damage they receive, regardless of how much (although multi-hit effects will dispel the shield on first hit and do normal damage thereafter). This does not block instant-kill or transformation effects, however.
• Deliberately Different Description: The Flavor Text on most cards are generally fourth wall-breaking jokes and references. The exception are the majority of Hero cards, which have completely serious quotes from or about the depicted character.
• Demoted to Extra: In contrast to characters like Valeera or Lord Jaraxxus, various characters with important lore are only presented as minions in this game. Notable examples would be Varian Wrynn, Illidan Stormrage (before he got promoted), Tirion Fordring, Bolvar Fordragon, Sylvanas Windrunner, all of the Dragon Aspects except for Nefarian and Onyxia, Cairne Bloodhoof, Deathwing, Grommash Hellscream, Gallywix and Vol'jin (they're Legendary, but still). This is especially glaring with the Dragon Aspects and Bolvar Fordragon given that Nefarian and Kel'Thuzad as well as their followers are the Big Bad behind two of the adventures.
• Denser and Wackier: Hearthstone is a more cartoony, exaggerated take on the Warcraft universe.
• Developer's Foresight: Several cards have hidden lines that are only heard in certain (often unexpected) situations, just in case the criteria are ever met.
  • The 2/1 Defender, summoned by the Paladin secret Noble Sacrifice, usually dies immediately when the secret is activated. But if it manages to survive, it says "Ahaha, I lived!" when attacking.
  • The Neutral minion Doomsayer destroys all minions (including itself) at the beginning of your next turn. Minions cannot attack the turn they enter the field, and he´s also 0/7, so he cannot attack even if given Charge. His summon quote is "The end is coming!", and if he somehow gets some attack and is silenced/given charge, his attack quote is "Did I miss it?"
  • Another 0-attack minion is the Shieldbearer, basically a low-cost damage sponge. If you buff it to allow it to attack, its quote is a very enthusiastic "Payback time!"
  • Some legendary cards will have special lore-relevant responses if used against a particular hero. Playing Illidan Stormrage will get the special quote "Hello... brother" if the opponent is Malfurion Stormrage. Playing Cairne Bloodhoof against Garrosh Hellscream will cause him to scold him and call him unfit to rule the Horde, while playing Vol'jin against Garrosh elicits "Who be the Warchief now?" (Vol'jin took the position after Garrosh was deposed). Playing Wilfred Fizzlebang against Lord Jaraxxus will cause him to say, "You are bound to me, demon... I think", prompting Jaraxxus to repeat his famous WoW quote: "TRIFLING GNOME! Your arrogance will be your undoing!" Playing Brann Bronzebeard against the alternative Warrior hero Magni Bronzebeard (his brother in the original game) will cause him to ask if Magni had seen their brother Muradin lately. Playing Varian Wrynn against his son, Anduin Wrynn, will cause him to proudly announce, "Your skills are growing." Play Khadgar against either Medivh or the Khadgar hero will have different opening lines.
  • If you're playing in a match of Malfurion Stormrage vs. Tyrande Whisperwind, they will start the match by greeting their beloved.
  • Prior to "One Night in Karazhan", out of the nine classes, the mage, priest, and warlock were the only ones incapable of attacking with their hero, as they lack weapons. Through various means (ex: using Lorewalker Cho to take a druid's Claw spell, or by using a Faceless Manipulator to clone Tirion Fordring), it is possible to attack with these classes, and they all have lines for such an occasion. The Priest shouts "By the light!", the Warlock exhorts his enemy to "SUFFER!", while the Mage declares "I'm ready!". As the neutral legendary card "Medivh, the Guardian" gives you a weapon with his battlecry, these lines are much easier to come across, but the weapon in question is a piddly 1/3 with a powerful effect while it's equipped, so using it to attack is probably unlikely enough to still count as this. Then Knights of the Frozen Throne brought in The Lich King, a Neutral card that can give you a 5/3 Frostmourne at the end of the turn, meaning there's a lot more opportunities to hear these lines.
  • The Warlock legendary Lord Jaraxxus replaces Gul'dan as the hero, bringing with him his own 3/8 weapon and a new hero power. However, if his weapon is destroyed or stolen from him (or more unlikely simply gets used up), his response is "WHERE DID MY WEAPON GO?!"
  • In the unlikely event that both players are able to survive several turns worth of increasing fatigue damage (a combined total of 190 damage minimum, much more if any card draw effects were used during the match) or, more likely, have ways of infinitely refilling their decks (e.g. with two copies of Kingsbane or Dead Man's Hand), the game will automatically end in a draw on turn 50.
  • In Curse of Naxxramas, in the event that a player uses a specific card against a Heroic boss who would be spectacularly weak to it, Kel'Thuzad will mock the player for taking the easy way out and negate the action without refunding the cost; complete with unique dialogue. Confirmed situations include using Alexstraza against the 99 HP Loatheb, and using the Doomsayer and Equality cards against the Four Horsemen, who start the fight with 3 2/7 minions on the board.
  • Gothik the Harvester's gimmick is that killing his minions spawns minions on your side that both cause damage to your hero and have zero attack. If you buff these minions so that they can attack, however, they will react with either "How? No!" (Spectral Trainee), "Shall not... control!" (Spectral Warrior) or "NOOOOO!" (Spectral Rider).
  • Continues in Blackrock Mountain. If you kill Emperor Thaurissan after killing Moira (which, due to his hero power, requires that you kill both on the same turn), Nefarian will congratulate you on managing to kill both of them.
    • Continuing in Blackrock Mountain, using Alextrasza against Vaelastrasz the Corrupt will have him shout "Help me. Lifebinder! Help!" Playing Deathwing against Nefarian has a similar effect where he says "D-Daddy?"
  • One Night in Karazhan has an entire catalogue of dialogue if you're playing a Mage with the Medivh alt hero. Many of them will comment your "Medivh costume"; Medivh himself will recognize you as his future self.
  • Nefarian has unique entry dialogue depending which class he is played against. This includes opponents that don't have a class, such as many Adventure bosses and the Ragnaros hero summoned by Majordomo Executus, and his Battlecry (give you two spells from the opponent's class) instead generates two copies of Tail Swipe, a card he used as a boss.
  • In similar way, boss fight against Kel'Thuzad has him comment on each class battlecry, such as calling out the Mage's "You asked for this" by pointing out that it was the player who barged into his hideout, or the Rogue's "Watch your back" with "Okay. I. Will." Unfortunately, he only reacts to the default heroes; his voice lines were not updated for alternate hero skins.
  • Druid minions that transform into beasts upon being played (Druid of the Claw, Druid of the Flame, and Druid of the Saber) normally use the attack and death sounds of their beast forms, but they still have attack and death sounds for their night elf forms in case they enter the battlefield without transforming. The Druid of the Saber, who normally transforms into a feline, is especially hilarious, as her attack line is "Hear me roar!" and upon death she imitates a cat meowing. Furthermore, they all have a hidden third form that they only turn into if you control Fandral Staghelm, whose effect combines both effects of your "Choose One" cards, including the transforming Druids.
  • During the Lich King boss fight, he always plays a spell on his first turn that gives him a massive advantage. Mages can actually counter or steal it ^note Kabal Lackey followed by Counterspell or Mana Bind, and the Lich King will be outraged by this "exploit". Priests can also copy it with Mind Vision, which results in both heroes emoting in muffles.
  • Kel'Thuzad, the Lich King's right-hand man, has a special summoning line when you play him against the Lich King boss fight in the Knights of the Frozen Throne mission. Note that Naxxramas came out 3 years ago and has been rotated out of Standard for more than a year since.
  • Lord Marrowgar from Knights of the Frozen Throne has a hero power which automatically heals him to full health at the end of his turn. In the event that he gets an Auchenai Soulpriest, he will react accordingly due to the Soulpriest's effect causing him to die instantly when his hero power triggers. Pulling this off previously required incredible luck on the player's part, as Priest had no reliable way to give minions to the opponent, but with Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, every class can do it thanks to the introduction of Silas Darkmoon.
  • All of Tirion's "adventurers" from the Icecrown prologue have attack lines, which can be heard in the unlikely event that they live long enough for you to kill them with Frostmourne and re-summon them with Frostmourne's Deathrattle. This includes A. F. Kay, who can't attack at all barring the very unlikely event of you somehow silencing her^note the premade deck for this encounter has no silences, meaning that to get one, you need to get Lyra the Sunshard off Sindragosa and then get a silence off Lyra and the Warlock on Fire, which dies at the end of the turn and thus can't be stolen by Frostmourne.
  • On the very rare occasion that you summon Wilfred Fizzlebang with an Astral Portal during the prologue fight of One Night at Karazhan, Wilfred's ability will remove the costs from cards drawn by Medivh's hero power. It's particularly notable since Wilfred Fizzlebang otherwise only works with the Warlock's hero power.
  • Doppelgangster has a Battlecry that summons two copies of itself; however, the copies summoned are treated as different cards from the original and have a different artwork (though they enter play with the same stats as the original). If you put one of the duplicates in your hand and then play it, its Battlecry will summon the original Doppelgangster instead of another copy of itself.
  • If you put Whizbang the Wonderful in your deck, he replaces the whole list with one of the game's preconstructed decklists. This means the only way you'll ever see Whizbang in play is through card generation effects. He still has an entry animation and a proper set of voice lines programmed in case this ever happens.
  • Ysera Awakens, one of the Dream cards you can get out of Ysera, deals massive damage to everything except anything named "Ysera", including the opponent's. This also includes "Ysera, Awakened" from Descent of Dragons, and her reprint, "Ysera the Dreamer".
  • One of the possible outcomes for Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate is the Rod of Roasting, which casts Pyroblast until one hero dies. However, both heroes might be Immune, or have so much armor that the Pyroblast chain would go on for hours. The developers thought of this, and stops the Pyroblast chain at 60 pyroblasts (which is 600 damage; in comparison, heroes start with 30 health) and declares the player who played Yogg the winner.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The practice of BMing^note Bad Manners, where you intentionally lord over your superiority or board control to the other player by doing unnecessary things such as wiping his entire board even when you could kill him this turn. Stories abound where that gave the enemy the breathing space he needed to perform that one combo that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
• Didn't See That Coming: Happens a lot. The enemy deviates from the established meta and use widely considered poor cards such as Twisting Nether]] or just normal cards that's usually not included in the deck. But playing these cards at the right moment could devastate your battle plan and break your back. Card generation effects, either randomly or via the Discover mechanic, can also land players with just the right answer to their predicament in a highly unpredictable way. Even pros are not immune to this.
  • This trope is also prone to happen when Secrets are involved. There may be only a small select pool of Secrets that see play, dramatically reducing the number of possibilities to account for, but when a Secret is randomly generated, all bets are off.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Meta example, but it is possible, with the blessings of RNGeesus for top-tier Legend pro players to lose against Angry Chicken opponents. Usually happens when a season ends and thus resets everyone's ranks. Watch Amaz's breakdown as his opponent dismantles him during one of his Streams. ^note And considering said opponent uses Kobold Geomancer and Arcane Explosion which are considered subpar cards, it's safe to say that they're relatively new to the game
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Inspire minions are tricky to use. They are the only minions in the game with manually activatable abilities, via using your hero power. They are effectively minions with two seperate mana costs: the one listed on the card and the previous cost with 2 added, as in order to guarantee full value from an Inspire minion you need to use the hero power in the same turn they are summoned. Playing them for the first cost means that you dropped a below-average bullet magnet that will almost certainly die before the next turn, the other is usually inferior in value to a minion without inspire that has the same cost. That said, if an Inspire minion sticks around it can get rapidly out of control, from drawing tons of spells off of Nexus Champion Saraad or summoning multiple free murlocs with Murloc Knight (with it possibly summoning another Murloc Knight!).
  • Lord Jaraxxus, a warlock legendary minion who upon summoning will outright destroy your hero and replace them with himself. He has a mere 15 hp, meaning that it's not too hard to kill him, and his high mana cost of 9 means that finding a safe time to play him is not easy. He gains a devastating hero power that can summon a 6/6 for 2 mana every turn, but he can't even use it on the turn he's summoned unless his cost is reduced somehow. To top it off, his best use is as a panic button, meaning that even if you can get away with playing him it might not be beneficial. But by god, if you pull it off the game is all but won: a 6/6 every turn is almost unstoppable, and Jaraxxus' innate 3/8 weapon makes it so that the opponent can't rely on cheap minions to finish him off. The best part? His owner is granted access to the best emotes in the game.
  • Chillmaw, a very powerful minion exclusive to dragon decks. Its a 6/6 dragon with taunt for 7 mana, which is arguably already decent, but the deathrattle is what makes it interesting. If Chillmaw's owner is holding a dragon, every minion on the board takes 3 damage. This is the only "holding a dragon" effect in the game to appear as a deathrattle instead of a battlecry, meaning that regardless of if the player is holding a dragon or not a properly timed Chillmaw can save the game, as it either forces the opponent to take a gamble or perform terrible trades just to play it safe. Of course, it could just as easily backfire if the opponent guesses correctly, and it's far easier to mundanely use Chillmaw as a lategame taunt, but the flexibility and mindgames generally secure it a spot in dragon decks.
  • In order to use Reno Jackson's effect, there can only be 1 copy of any card in your deck at the time of his summoning. What this means is that you either have to run a highlander deck where you only have one copy of any card which inevitably causes the deck to suffer, or run some duplicates and risk not drawing either of them before Reno has to hit the field. You need to be pretty good at deckbuilding to make him work. That said, what stops this from being Awesome, but Impractical is the utterly insane payoff- you get a 4/6 for 6 that fully heals your hero.
    • And with Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, Mages, Priests, and Warlocks can get a taste of the Kabal's power from these deck types via Kazakus's range of powerful custom-made potions. Mages get to cast a free spell with Inkmaster Solia, Priests get free Hero Power for the entire game with Raza the Chained, and Warlocks can dump their entire hand of demons into the battlefield with Krul the Unshackled.
    • The mechanic returns in Saviors of Uldum where all classes gain access to Zephrys the Great, a 2 mana 3/2 programmed to analyse the current game state and give you the best possible card for the situation (from the Basic and Classic sets).
    • Additionally, the league of explorers returned as class legendaries using the same mechanic. Paladins got access to Sir Finley of the Sands, who lets you discover an upgraded basic hero power. Mages got Reno the Relicologist, who deals 10 damage to random opposing minions. Druids got Elise the Enlightened, who copies every card in your hand for massive combo potential. Finally, Hunters got Dinotamer Brann, who plays the classic legendary King Krush, an 8/8 minion with charge, not only with a 2 mana discount, but also the addition of Brann's own body.
    • In Descent of Dragons, another tool for singleton decks appeared in Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, a powerful late game bomb, who in addition to her own 8/8 body gives the player two random dragons for free, often providing a massive board from nowhere.
  • Defile from Knights of the Frozen Throne is a major candidate for the best board clear in the game, but is tricky to use. It's a 2 mana Warlock spell that deals 1 damage to all minions; if it kills any, it recasts itself. Clever manipulation of the board state can result in a devastating wipe that can even kills stuff that's spawned during its casting, but to set up such a wipe, you have to do some careful number-crunching while under pressure from the turn timer; one mistake can mean the difference between fully clearing the board and failing to kill most of it. Defile's big brother Lord Godfrey, introduced in The Witchwood, deals 2 damage, making for even more powerful clears with a 7 mana 4/4 attached to boot.
  • In Battlegrounds, Dancin' Deryl's Hero Power is giving a tavern minion +1/+1 twice whenever you sell a minion. Taking advantage of his Hero Power requires foresight and planning, but he pays off if you can do it well. By storing up token-summoning minions and and juggling between selling your minions and buying out minions in the tavern to focus all his buffs on one minion, he can get an incredibly buffed up minion on a single turn, and because all the token-generating minions are on Tier 1, Deryl can have an incredibly strong start and have very high-quality tripled minions by the mid game if played well.
• Disciplines of Magic: There are seven spell schools: Arcane, Fel, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, and Shadow; that said, not every spell falls into one of these seven schools.
• Disk One Nuke:
  • To this day, completing the first level of Icecrown Citadel will get you a free, random Death Knight. The level itself uses a pre-made deck, meaning the quality of your own collection is entirely irrelevant. If you're interested in playing Wild format, almost all of the Death Knights, even the bad ones, are capable of carrying you for a long while. If you just want to play Standard, it's a free 400 Arcane Dust, which is a massive boon to your dust income and will get you much closer to getting cards you actually care about.
  • One of the major changes made by the Year of the Phoenix was the addition of starter decks. New/returning players have a choice between nine decks, one for each of the base classes, and they all include several strong cards - and you get to keep every one of them to use for later. While most of the decks are either unoptimized or just lacking in value, the Mage deck is an absolute monster - it's a Highlander deck featuring Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, two ludicrously powerful Legendary cards that can be played in any class. Even if you don't care about Mage, it's more than worth taking this deck strictly for these two.
• Distaff Counterpart: Late in one of the earlier chapters of the Dalaran Heist, you may have to fight Queen Wagtoggle. She's not a real queen, though. Nor does she own a magic candle.
• Double-Edged Buff:
  • Power Overwhelming gives a friendly minion a +4/+4 buff until the end of the turn. Then it dies. Horribly.
  • Cryostasis gives a minion a +3/+3 buff, then freezes it, preventing it from attacking until it thaws out on a future turn.
• Down to the Last Play: Some games are very close and can easily be won by either player depending on how they spend their last turns. It's often the case that both heroes are low enough health so that the very next card-draw (for you or your opponent) will be the deciding factor.
• Draw Extra Cards: Since the game has mana as a primary resource beyond cards or Hit Points, it allows the game to have a bevy of card draw effects. Some examples include:
  • The Warlock's Hero Power, Life Tap, which lets them draw a card for 2 Mana at the cost of taking 2 damage. As a Hero Power, they can use it once every turn.
  • Mage's Arcane Intellect, drawing two cards for 3 Mana.
  • Coldlight Oracle, which has a Battlecry that makes both players draw two cards. Its double-edged effect made it a staple in mill decks, which aims to waste opponent's card by forcing them to draw beyond their hand limit.
  • Gadgetzan Auctioneer, while in play, draws you a card whenever the owner plays a spell. It was widely used in combo decks using many low-cost spells.
  • Divine Favor is a 3-mana Paladin spell that draws cards until you have cards equal to our opponent's hand size. It was eventually kicked out of Standard due to how powerful it was in aggro Paladin matchups versus control decks.
  • Aluneth, a Legendary Mage weapon that drew three cards at the end of your turn while equipped. While it makes for a strong draw engine, the fact it's uncontrollable and hard to unequip as a Mage meant it puts you on a timer as a downside.
  • Octosari, a 8-mana 8/8 Legendary Neutral minion with a Deathrattle that makes the owner draw 8 cards on death.
  • Myra's Unstable Element, a Legendary Rogue spell that draws your entire deck for 5 mana.
  • Backfire allows a player to draw three cards at the cost of hurting the player for 3 damage.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: The Abusive Sergeant, "PUT ME IN YOUR DECK, MAGGOT!"
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Charge minions do not require a turn to get ready and can attack right away, leaving your opponent with no time to put up additional defences to counter their influence the first round. Similarly, Battlecry minions have an effect that takes place immediately, meaning that an opponent has no way to deal with their damaging effects.
  • Deathwing destroys all other minions when summoned, in addition to forcing his summoner to discard their entire hand. Deathwing, Mad Aspect is even more visually dynamic; he attacks everything.