History VideoGame / HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft

[[folder:Tropes A-G]]
* AbsurdPhobia: According to Moroes in ''One Night in Karazhan'', murlocs are terrified of ''balloons''.
* AchillesHeel: Many heroes or specific deck strategies usually have at least one glaring weakness, even if it's a single type of card effect.
** Legendary minions are usually vulnerable to silences, turning them into cost-inefficient bog-standard minions. Such legendaries are also vulnerable to being copied with Faceless Manipulator or stolen by the opponent using Sylvanas Windrunner's deathrattle (neutral), MindControl (Priest) or Entomb (also Priest).
** Strategies reliant on beefing up one minion or dependent on one card's continuous effect can be similarly undone with a silence. Like the above, these cards can also be stolen by the enemy and cause disaster.
** In addition to being easily undone with silence, buff spells are useless if the opponent keeps your board clear of minions to buff.
** High-damage cards are vulnerable to single-target elimination spells, including Shadow Word: Death for Priests (5 attack and above), Assassinate for Rogues (any attack level), [[ForcedTransformation Polymorph]] for Mages (turn any minion into a 1/1 Sheep), and Big Game Hunter as a neutral minion with its Battlecry (Destroy an enemy minion with 7 or more attack).
** Rush strategies are usually impeded by cost-efficient Taunt minions, since these force them to trade two or more minions to get through them if they can't be eliminated through other means. Filling one's board with cheap, weak creatures is also vulnerable to boardclear and AOE spells. Rush strategies can also be undone by running out of steam--no card draw = no way to regain the upper hand.
** Weapons and weapon-reliant classes like Warrior and Rogue can be screwed over by cards that destroy weapons(I.E. Harrison Jones, Swamp Ooze, Sabotage, Bloodsail Corsair).
** Taunt minions can force attacks toward them, but they can't do anything about spells or hero powers targeting their allies or their hero. They're also vulnerable to being destroyed by a Black Knight (Battlecry: destroy an enemy minion with Taunt) or being silenced, though at least most minions will keep their stats.
** Some minions have a drawbacks such as harmful Deathrattles (effect that triggers when the minion dies) and Battlecries, or ones that help the opposing player in exchange for more efficient stats. Silences help here.
** The warlock spell Sacrificial Pact one-shots a demon. Any demon. Nowhere does it say that the demon has to be a minion. If the enemy hero is '''[[LargeHam JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION!!]]''', this spell becomes an instant "I win" button. This weakness has been removed due to a nerf to Sacrificial Pact, which now can only target its caster's own demons.
** Highlander Decks[[note]]No duplicate in deck, an archetype first codified by Reno Jackson[[/note]] are extraordinarily vulnerable to 'Shuffle into enemy deck' effects. While you can tell that the effect won't activate from the lack of glow on the card, it has caught even pro players off-guard. Any odd or even synergy cards that isn't Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater also fall under this weakness, as do almost any other deck types that have restrictions on what can be in the deck (a couple such restrictions in actual play are: "No neutral (i.e., usable by any class) cards" and "No minion cards").
* AdaptationalHeroism / AdaptationalVillainy: As the game went on, several of the playable heroes receive this treatment in regard to lore. Most notable in the ''Whisper of the Old Gods'' and ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'' expansion where almost all of the playable heroes, many of whom are the BigGood in the original game like Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, Tyrande, Malfurion, Khadgar and Magni, seeking assistance from the evil Old Gods in the former (with the exception of the Paladin heroes, Uther and Liadrin, served as the TokenGoodTeammate) and being recruited into notorious criminal gangs in the latter.
* AffectionateParody: While ''Curse of Naxxramas'' and ''Blackrock Mountain'' have shades of this, ''One Night in Karazhan'' is a full-blown parody of the raid dungeon it was inspired by. The original raid was a haunted wizard's tower. The ''Hearthstone'' adventure is about trying to get the tower cleaned up for a big party!
* AlmightyJanitor:
** Harth Stonebrew, the Innkeeper, is proprietor of the magical inn to play Hearthstone at. And he's the one keeping the peace of the inn, which is visited by undeads, dragons, old gods, and other monstrosities.
** ''Heroic Innkeeper'' has subpar stats for its cost, but with a full board she can turn into a game-ending 16/16 with Taunt. Her artwork also displays her drawing a CaneSword out of her broom.
* AmusementParkOfDoom: The Darkmoon Faire has been a relatively benign place of fun and games in World of Warcraft, but its incarnation in ''Madness at the Darkmoon Faire'' expansion has it invoking the power of the Old Gods in its rides and games.
* AnachronismStew: An in-universe example: some of the heroes would never have met in the original Warcraft timeline - Gul'dan, for example, was dead before Anduin Wrynn was even born. This was even lampshaded in the tie-in comic for Knights of the Frozen Throne, with the crowd scoffing at the Pompous Thespian's story because of this.
* AnimationBump: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVrPAhOR0kg trailer]] for ''March of the Lich King'' eschews the "animated still image" look that ''Hearthstone'' had been using for years for a 3D animated cinematic. It is quite cartoony and uses 2D assets for things like explosions, but it's still clear that they pulled out all the stops for Death Knight's official announcement.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** Hearthstone's mana system is a considerable upgrade from the mana systems found in some other card games. Rather than needing specific cards in hand to extend your mana (like TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering's land cards) or sacrificing potentially useful cards for mana (like the old Warcraft TCG), the game automatically gives you a mana crystal turn by turn (up to a maximum of 10).
** Unlike other PlayEveryDay games, Daily Quests don't have to be done that day and up to 3 can be saved ''and'' quests can be cancelled to get another one (once a day). If you get a quest to, say, win X games as a hero you don't have a deck for, you have the option to either take your time to build a good deck up or re-roll it and try to get a better one.
*** As the game goes on, quests that demand players to win {{PvP}} games are slowly removed so that even the worst or unluckiest players can still complete quests to slowly expand their collection. As of this writing, there is only one quest left (Win: win 2 {{PvP}} matches) that demand players to actually win.
** The game provides alternatives to some cards' effects should their primary effects be rendered inapplicable/useless, although the secondary effects are generally weak.
*** Several Druid spells that give empty Mana crystals like '''Wild Growth''' are useless once you have the maximum amount. To compensate, they give you '''Excess Mana''' card which draws you another card for free.
*** The Warlock spell '''Sense Demons''' randomly picks up two demons from your deck to put into your hand. In case you've run out of demons in your deck, the game will instead give you a 1-mana 1/1 Imp Demon as a replacement for each shortage.
*** The Priest spell '''Mindgames''' summons a random minion from an opponent's deck (that is, one that hasn't been drawn yet). In the event that there are no more minions to draw, a 0/1 Shadow of Nothing card is summoned instead ("Mindgames whiffed! Your opponent had no minions left!").
*** Note that your opponent's deck may not have had any minions in it to begin with. Mage in particular can build very effective decks with no minion cards. While you can't really play without minions, you ''can'' stock your decks with spells that create minions instead of cards that are minions themselves.
** A lot of legendaries have effects that trigger on the end of the user's turn, ensuring that you will get that benefit at least once before your opponent will most likely neutralize it if they can.
** You can turn spare cards into material to craft cards you want. The game even has an option to automatically do this with cards that you have more copies of than you can use anyway (more than two for most, or more than one for legendaries). And if you don't care for shiny, golden cards, you can disenchant them for tons of dust to make multiple non-golden cards.
*** If you click the "craft" or "disenchant" button one too many times and create/disenchant more copies of a card than you intended to, you can undo that action and get a full dust refund. This refund lasts until you leave the crafting interface for that card.
*** Whenever a card is nerfed, for a limited time, all copies of that card can be disenchanted for their full crafting cost, essentially giving a player their dust back if they crafted the card themselves. For cards that have been moved to the Hall of Fame, you automatically gets their full dust value without needing to disenchant the cards, giving an incentive to keep those cards for use in any Wild format.
** You also get easy access to a Basic deck for each hero, with a few more basic cards being unlocked as you level them to level 10. And you can't lose any of the basic cards so the option to try another hero is always there. With the Basic set becoming more useless over time, in 2020, it was replaced with a yearly Core set, which contains cards from vanilla and previous expansions with much more applicable use.
** Whenever a "deal X damage to random targets" is cast, the game will avoid overkilling minions and just switch to other ones. For example, casting Avenging Wrath as a Paladin (8 damage to random enemies) will hit that 1-health minion then stop hitting it so that the damage isn't wasted.
** If your opponent sits for a while without doing anything, a fuse will appear across the middle of the board. If it burns down, their turn ends... and all their ''subsequent'' turns ''start'' with the fuse, until they actually make an action. This is probably not anti-frustrating for your opponent (especially if said opponent is a turtling griefer, who deliberately want to waste your time so you concede), but since ''you'' don't have to wait for god-knows-how-long until they finally play something, you're happy.
*** Unfortunately, griefers can still do the so-called "roping": Deliberately letting the fuse run out without pressing End Turn while still playing cards during their turn, or press End Turn at the last second if there's no card to play, negating this penalty for the ropers and allowing them to drag on the game to annoy the other player.
** A "pity timer" exists, which increases your chances of pulling a legendary or epic card for each consecutive pack you've opened without one, culminating at a guaranteed legendary or epic every 40 and 10 packs respectively. This timer is modified for new expansions, where you're guaranteed a legendary within the first 10 packs of an expansion.
** Because of the fact that several ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' cards require him, a copy of C'Thun, as well as two copies of Beckoner of Evil, are automatically given to anybody who opens a ''Whispers'' pack.
** In ranked mode, you don't start losing stars upon game losses until you reach rank 20, and it's impossible to go below 20. This makes it relatively easy for anyone to earn the card back reward for a season through sheer persistence. Ranked "floors" also ensure that players who reach ranks of multiples of 5, where they upgrade their seasonal reward, don't go below said rank, encouraging players to climb even if they don't have fully-tuned decks.
** Legendary cards are rarity-locked, meaning that once you pull or craft a Legendary, you will no longer pull any more copies of that card until you either disenchant it or collect every Legendary from that set. As of the Year of the Phoenix, all other cards have also been rarity-locked at 2 copies, meaning less sifting through mountains of garbage Rares and Epics to get that one card you need.
** To close the massive gap of available content between new and old players, Blizzard has implemented Ranks 50 to 26 only for new players who registered during and after October 2018, giving them the ability to play around with their low-power decks and learn the game before reaching Rank 25 and contending with the more experienced playerbase. On the way, they also earn several free packs to expand their collection.
** Elise the Trailblazer shuffles an Un'Goro pack into the player's deck, which yields 5 Un'Goro cards when drawn and used. Unlike most other packs a player would open, this pack is intentionally rigged to contain at least one legendary or epic card, meaning you ''will'' at least get some good bang for your buck.[[note]]Whether you get a [[JokeCharacter useless legendary or epic]] is an entirely different story.[[/note]]
** In a very specific case which doubles as DevelopersForesight, One Night in Kharazan includes a boss battle where the opponent's ''hero'' has taunt, forcing you to ignore any of the several, occasionally random minions he summons. Like normal situations involving two taunt enemies, either can be attacked freely if he summons, say, a Stubborn Gastropod. On the off chance that he summons Mal'Ganis, a demon that makes his controller immune to damage, the hero taunt effect will cancel out entirely until Mal'Ganis dies; ditto for any other case where a character gets Taunt and Immune at the same time.
* AntiMagic:
** The mage secret Counterspell immediately negates the next spell an opponent plays.
** Silencing a card removes any text, abilities, and buffs on it. To eliminate constant board effects granted by other cards, such as the +1/+1 from Stormwind Champion, target the minion ''providing'' the buff instead.
** Polymorph and Hex effectively do the same thing by turning the minion into a entirely different, weak creature (an 1/1 Sheep and a 0/1 Frog with Taunt, respectively).
* AntiPoopSocking: You get a daily quest where you can earn 40 or 60 gold from (or 100 gold from one quest), but once that's done you can only earn 10 gold by winning 3 games, which is a slow way to farm for gold. You can potentially win gold from the Arena if you win enough matches, but it costs 150 gold to enter ([[BribingYourWayToVictory unless you pay with cash]]). You need to win more than 50 gold in prizes to make a profit if one accounts for the pack of cards (worth 100 gold) that's automatically given out as a prize. There are several achievements that grant gold, but not enough of them to be a reliable source of gold: the only ones that give gold are for unlocking all the heroes, all the basic cards, beating all the expert hero decks on practice mode, winning 100 games, winning 1000 games, and collecting all the cards.
** There's also a cap of 100 on the amount of gold you can earn through wins per day. Of course, unless you go on a binge, you won't make it that far daily because it requires a minimum of ''thirty matches'' to make that much gold. They all have to be wins too.
* AntiTrollingFeatures: Player communication during matches is limited to six emotes: Greetings, Well Played, Thanks, Wow, Oops, and Threaten. The Wow emote was notably brought in to replace the Sorry emote, which Blizzard felt too many players were using in a sarcastic way. Players also have the option to "Squelch" the opposing player, effectively muting them, if they feel their opponent is spamming or misusing emotes.
* ApologeticAttacker:
** Due to "Sorry" being one of the six options on the emote system, players can invoke it to varying degrees. It's specially appropriate (or cruel, depending on your perpective) when you're about to wipe the entire board by casting a Consecration, Lightning Storm or a Flamestrike. The most amusing "Sorry" quote probably goes to Lord Jaraxxus:
--->'''Jaraxxus:''' [[EvilIsHammy JARAXXUS IS...]] [[SubvertedTrope sorry]].
** The Sorry emote was abused by DeadpanSnarker players so often that Blizzard had to replace it with an "astonishment"-styled emote upon the release of ''Whispers of the Old Gods''. (It doesn't seem to have worked - players abuse that emote instead.)
** Alexstraza also qualifies with her attack quote "I will mourn your death."
* ArcNumber:
** 8 for ''Ragnaros''; he's an 8-mana minion with 8/8 stats, dealing 8 damage to a random enemy at the end of every turn.
** 5 for ''Ultimate Infestation'', a 10-mana spell that deals 5 damage, grants 5 armor, summons a 5/5 ghoul, and draws you 5 cards. Ghouls in the pipe, five by five.
** 7 for ''Dr. Boom'', who was a 7-mana 7/7 on release (who also made a couple of Boom-Bots that put him above the basic War Golem) and re-release. His Hero card in ''The Boomsday Project'' is also 7 mana and grants 7 bonus armor. His reprint in ''Rise of Shadows'' as Blastmaster Boom is a 7-mana 7/7.
* ArcVillain:
** Kel'thuzad makes his return as the BigBad of ''Curse of Naxxramas''.
** ''Blackrock Mountain'' has Ragnaros for the first two wings and Nefarian for the adventure as a whole.
** ''The League of Explorers'' has Arch-Thief Rafaam, though mostly he just sits back and lets the heroes play MacGuffinDeliveryService.
** ''The Witchwood'' has Hagatha the Witch, who's responsible for the Witchwood's creation.
** Rafaam returns as the overarching villain of the entire Year of the Dragon, starting as the VillainProtagonist in ''Rise of Shadows'' before becoming a tradition antagonist in ''Saviors of Uldum''.
* TheArchmage:
** For one, there's ''Archmage Antonidas'' legendary minion and the Archmage Classic minion card.
** The playable Mage Heroes are also famous in-universe for their magical prowess, with Jaina being Antonidas' star pupil, Khadgar being apprenticed to Medivh and Medivh being the last Guardian of Tirisfal, the most powerful mortal mage who have ever lived. Can also be invoked by the famous Freeze Mage deck, which is rather light in minions, but aims to devastate the enemy Hero directly regardless of board control.
** And believe it or not, ''Hunter'' also counts with the Spellhunter archetype, which fills their deck with nothing ''but'' spells. Predictably, they generate minions through SummonMagic and Deathstalker Rexxar's Hero Power.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: During the final battle against Arthas in the Frozen Throne campaign, he will occasionally ask "Who built that deck for you?", likely startling the player if they consulted a walkthrough to beat him.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
** A common trope in the flavor texts.
-->'''SI:7 Agent:''' The agents of SI:7 are responsible for Stormwind's covert activities. Their duties include espionage, assassination, and throwing surprise birthday parties for the royal family.
** Taken almost literally with the Accusation cycle from ''Maw and Disorder'', which targets a minion and destroys it after a condition is fulfilled. The three cards in this cycle are Warlock's Arson Accusation (2 mana and destroys the target after the user takes damage), Rogue's Murder Accusation (2 mana and destroys the target after another enemy minion dies), and Priest's Theft Accusation (1 mana and destroys the target after the user plays a card copied from their opponent).
* ArtificialBrilliance:
** Yes, we're talking about the Hearthstone AI who needs overpowered cards and hero abilities to be a challenge, but long story short, do ''not'' play any cards that give your opponent a Spare Part when you're fighting Emperor Thaurissan. [[spoiler:If he gets the Time Rewinder, he'll use it on [[MoralityChain his wife]]... and [[OneHitKill use his hero power on you.]]]]
** Another notable one is in the Lich King fight. If you play Majordomo Exectus as a Paladin [[spoiler:he'll kill it, turning you into Ragnaros and summoning his own Majordomo - then he'll kill his Majordomo off, and use Ragnaros' hero power to one-shot you!]]
** Zephrys the Great is ArtificialBrilliance that's at your side, as long as you meet his requirement of having no duplicates in your deck. He is programmed to analyze the board and offer you the best cards for your specific situation from the Basic and Classic sets. All too often, you'll wish for a specific card, only to be offered an even better one you didn't think about. That said, he has his limitations; for example, he doesn't understand unique card effects, so he will merrily offer you Taunt minions in a futile attempt to stop Kayn Sunfury[[note]]A demon hunter minion that makes all friendly attacks ignore Taunt[[/note]].
* ArtificialStupidity: The practice mode AI was never very challenging, but with the Curse of Naxxramas patch it became a lot more obvious that the Hearthstone AI… isn’t very smart. Examples include playing minions in the wrong order so that they don’t gain synergy which they would have otherwise had, making questionable trades, and in the case of Loatheb, using a Faceless Manipulator to clone a Spore. The developers compensated for this by massively buffing the Naxxramas bosses and giving them overpowered cards that aren’t even available to players, which implies they’ve pretty much admitted defeat in getting the Hearthstone AI to anywhere near player level.
** Arch-Thief Rafaam stands out for potentially being straight-up TooDumbToLive. If he gets Lord Jaraxxus and Sacrificial Pact in his deck, he will have no qualms about turning into Jaraxxus and then using Sacrificial Pact ''on himself''.
* AscendedExtra: Many minor characters from the main game are treated as equal to lore-important characters by appearing as minions along side them or even as heroes, such as the case of Valeera Sanguinar (the Rogue hero). A more notable example would be the Murlocs: In the game they're basically just nameless Mook tribes, while in this game they have the virtue of being one of the seven tribes that can synergize with each other (sometimes to insane levels; "Murloc decks" are built around this concept). The ''League of Explorers'' even has a Murloc as an adventure guide named Sir Finley Mrrgglton while the game later added another Murlocs named Morgle the Oracle as a Shaman playable hero. Though the biggest example? There's this Eredar who is just one-note boss that not even this site lists him amongst the characters of the Burning Legion... then proceeds to not only ascend, but be a BreakoutCharacter. Ladies and gentlemen, you face Jaraxxus, '''EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION!!!'''
** Dr. Boom easily takes the cake, though. In ''World of Warcraft'', he was a one-off quest target in the ''Burning Crusade'' expansion which most veterans don't even remember existing. In ''Hearthstone'', he was so infamous as one of the most overpowered cards in Hearthstone history that 3 years later he gets an ''expansion'' named after him.
** Tess Greymane is only a minor character in the original game compare to her father Genn. In ''The Witchwood'', she is basically TheHero of the Monster Hunt adventure while her father was severely DemotedToExtra.
** Madame Lazul is a rare Hearthstone-native example. Her only previous appearance was in the ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' trailer as the narrator. 3 years later, she's part of Rafaam's villain crew in the ''Rise of Shadows'' expansion.
** Nemsy Necrofizzle is another Hearthstone-native example. She went from a minor character on Fen Creeper and Bog Creeper (and not the main focus of the cards themselves to boot) to a playable hero of the Warlock class.
** Several species that weren't playable races are promoted to playable heroes both in term of Alternate skins or PvE heroes. Prominent examples in the alternate skins include: Murloc (Morgl), Mech (Sir Annoy-O), Dryad (Lunara) and Demon (Mecha-Jaraxxus). The Dalaran Heist has playable heroes of Gnoll (Ol'Barkeye for Hunter), Sethrak (Vessina for Shaman), Arakkoa (Kriziki for Priest), Elemental (Rakanishu for Mage), Vulpera[[note]]Non-playable at the time, although they are playable now[[/note]] (Captain Eudora for Rogue), Tol'Vir (Tekahn for Warlock) and Kobold race (Squeamlish for Druid), which means that ''7'' out of 9 classes are represented by a non-playable race.
* AscendedMeme: Several memes from ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' have carried over to this game, such as the Raid Leader's summoning response ("Handle it!"), battlecry when attacking ("Hit it very hard!") and flavor text. ("That's a 50 DKP minus!")
** Not to mention LeeroyJenkins himself is an unlockable card.
** ''Blackrock Mountain'' has a couple. The Dark Iron Arena encounter has a deck made of thirty legendaries, which was a silly joke deck among the playerbase. The Omnotron Defense System boss has a little EasterEgg: Keep using emotes, and its dialogue will change to [[spoiler:the repeated hellos of the Annoy-o-Tron, a card known for its obnoxious quotes.]]
** ''The Grand Tournament'' takes it further. Wrathgard's flavor text mentions Annoy-O-Tron, [[UndergroundMonkey Ice Rager]]'s says he's [[IncrediblyLamePun cooler]] than infamously bad card Magma Rager, and Confessor Paletress's flavor text says that the most common fear is getting the infamously bad Majordomo Executus out of Sneed's Old Shredder. And then there's Polymorph: Boar, which references the infamous Animal Companion summon, Huffer.
** ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' is full of this. One of the set's gimmicks are [[EvilCounterpart corrupted]] versions of existing cards, which includes memetic and [[EnsembleDarkhorse darkhorse]] characters like Annoy-o-Tron or Magma Rager. Then you get to the flavor text, which is clearly directed at the existing playerbase and comments on situations that commonly occurred in the community. An example is Validated Doomsayer's flavor text, which refers to how normal Doomsayer could drop from Piloted Shredder, generally with a major effect on the game.
** On the Hearthstone subreddit one player told a story about how after they won an arena match, their opponent added them to passive-aggresively rage at them for being a poor jobless loser for playing Hearthstone on a weekday. Conversely, said opponent can afford to play video games because his job is so great and relies on basement dwellers giving him work to do. Or as the opponent put it, "keep feeding the pyramid, roach boy =)". After various quotes and copypastas entered the subreddit's lexicon, Blizzard added Roach Boy to the random names that would cycle by on the queue roulette.
** ''The Witchwood'' continues the trend. Vivid Nightmare's text describes a nightmare where a person accidentally crafted a golden version of the infamously terrible Millhouse Manastorm, Vex Crow's description claims that it often summons Doomsayers (which it actually can), referencing Doomsayer's reputation as the worst case scenario of any RNG-based effect for one of two players, and Dire Frenzy once again brings up Huffer ([[MesACrowd and Huffer, and Huffer, and Huffer]]). The BigBad Hagatha the Witch even gets cross-game memes into the mix with text claiming that she's a Hanzo main, referencing Hanzo's notorious reputation in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}''.
** One of the spells created by The Great Akazamzarak is "Yoggers Poggers", which shuffle three Scrolls of Wonder into both players' decks, and each casts a random spell when drawn. Not only does it reference the incredibly random Yogg'Saron, it also references the [=PogChamp=] Twitch emote used for excitement when things unexpectedly work in one's favor (like, for instance, that random spell doing exactly what you need to get out of a pinch).
* AttackAttackAttack: The general strategy of an aggro deck or a rush deck is to hit the enemy hero relentlessly with charge minions and spells, pausing only to get rid of any Taunt minions that get in the way. The Hunter is particularly good at this, as his hero power lets him keep shooting the enemy hero for 2 damage and can't be mitigated by taunts. The Warlock Zoo Deck is pretty much this taken to the extreme: it consist mostly of cheap creatures, small buffs, and a lot of burst damage. Abusing the Warlock card draw hero power, this deck usually forgoes all non-essential board control and just seeks to absolutely steamroll opponents with tons of small, annoying, efficient minions and burst damage before they can control the board, stabilize and restore Health.
** Exaggerated by the popular (and also much-despised) 'Face Hunter' deck, a deck so mindlessly aggressive (even Zoo Warlock uses its rush advantage to secure board control) that a bot could play it and is regularly able to secure a turn 5 or 6 kill by simply ignoring EVEYRTHING except the opponent. [[MemeticMutation EVERYTHING GOES TO THE FACE!]]
* AwardBaitSong: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPguoeYTvMI Hearth and Home]]", which sounds very Disney-esque and fits more likely with an animated short of the game than with the actual game itself, nonetheless earned a nomination and won the award for "Best Original Song" at the [[http://www.audiogang.org/2018-awards/ 16th Annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards]].
* AwesomeButImpractical: This is the main point of the legendary cards, boasting unique abilities, flashy effects, and act as methods of ending the game. Most legendaries, however, are very specific in their use, have drawbacks, or those flashy effects make them cost more than their non-legendary counterparts; as a result, the majority of Legendaries are often less competitively viable than the 400 dust you get from disenchanting them, but the few that are viable generally become keystone cards. Their power also tends to mark them as prime targets of hard removal spells such as Polymorph and Hex or silencing effects.
** '''Millhouse Manastorm''' is 2 mana, 4 damage, 4 health, which is very difficult to deal with in turn one or two. The catch is that next turn, the opponent gets all spells for free. So, unless you're lucky and manage to get away with it, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUqahDOlJpk playing him leads to hilariously disastrous results]] (such as zero-cost Sprint, Pyroblast, Blessing of Kings, Mind Control...).
** '''King Mukla''' is 3 mana, 5 damage, 5 health. Played on an empty board, he's an impressive threat (especially early in the game). However, playing him means giving the opponent two Bananas, which can be used to buff minions by 1 damage and 1 health for 1 mana per card. So you're essentially giving the opponent extra buffs to use anytime, which can backfire later on...
*** However, it turns out that King Mukla's effect can be used to devastating potential in mill decks, where the goal is to force a loss by filling up your opponent's and and making them overdraw, burning powerful cards or taking extra fatigue damage. Since the two Bananas are separate cards, playing Mukla right before another card that draws your opponent cards means two fewer spaces for cards in their hand. This is especially effective when comboed with Coldlight Oracle, which draws both players two cards, Naturalize, which destroys an enemy minion for 1 mana but draws your opponent two cards, and Sap or Vanish, which return one or all minions to their player's hand - destroying the card if there isn't room for it.
*** The entire game plan of the Mecha'Thun combo deck is to empty the hand, deck, and board, and then play a few cards to summon Mecha'Thun and then kill it right away for an instant victory. Mukla screws up this game plan at the last minute by putting Bananas in their hand. Since the combo usually takes exactly 10 mana to execute, they need to spend another turn expending the Bananas... usually on ''your'' minions, if they've been trying to keep their board clear.
** '''Bolvar Fordragon''', a 1 attack, 7 health minion for 5 mana with the unique ability of gaining one attack in your hand every time one of your friendly minions dies and is the proud owner of a ridiculously badass entry animation. If held in hand for a while he can have an eye-melting 21 attack, more than enough to overkill every minion in the game, which can be instantly nullified by the opponent with a simple silence. Additionally, he is a ''dreadful'' card to draw when topdecking, because of how unbelievably inefficient his base stats are compared to his cost. At the very least, he can soak a silence instead of the similarly susceptible Tirion Fordring.
** '''Mimiron's Head''', a 4/5 mech for 5. If you control Mimiron and at least two other mechs at the start of your turn, they combine into the V-07-TR-0N, a 4/8 with charge that can attack four times a turn. Needless to say, V-07-TR-0N very quickly ends the game. The being said, Mimiron's Head has poor stats, and can easily be killed off by your opponent. If they can't kill Mimiron, they can usually kill a few mechs at least, nullifying his effect until they can kill him. At least he has an awesome [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsG7J31CA3M animation]].
** '''Deathwing''', in terms of raw stats, is the single most powerful playable minion in the game (along with his Dragonlord version). He has 12 attack and 12 life, meaning he can one-hit kill nearly any other minion in the game, and survive. When played from your hand, he destroys ALL other minions on the field, clearing all immediate threats instantly. But he costs ten mana, and playing him means discarding your entire hand, so while he makes an incredibly powerful entrance, you are relying on top-decking for the next few turns, and likely unable to defend him, especially from spells that remove any minion regardless of stats. [[GodzillaThreshold (Of course, if you actually top deck him when you're in a bad situation you have nothing to lose, and he can quite possibly single-handedly win you the game.)]]
** '''Majordomo Executus''', a 9/7 for 9 with a deathrattle which replaces your hero with Ragnaros, who now has the most powerful hero ability in the game[[note]]Deal 8 damage to a random enemy, which is his effect as a minion[[/note]], but has a pitiful 8 health. Additionally, he's also coded to remove any armour you've built up and his 8 HP is now your ''maximum'' life so you can't recover from it [[note]]unless you target yourself with Alexstrasza on the next turn, setting your HP to nearly double at 15)[[/note]]. Executus is widely considered the ''worst'' legendary in the ''entire game'' as a result, since he will regularly cost you the entire match on the turn after you play him (it's WAY too easy for most players to simply one-shot him with hard removal then kill your pasty 8-HP ass). Naturally, players have attempted to make combos involving Ragnaros's hero power, and on the rare occasion that it works (read: they don't immediately die when Executus triggers), it is ''[[StuffBlowingUp glorious]]''.
** ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' invoked this with '''Blood of The Ancient One'''. Blood of The Ancient One is a 9 mana 9/9 with no effect, except when you control second Blood of The Ancient One. If you control both, they fuse together at the end of your turn, becoming The Ancient One - a '''30/30'''! The fusion can't even be interrupted by your opponent since it happens on your turn. However, playing any 9 mana minion keeping it both alive for a turn is very difficult, and the extreme cost makes it nearly impossible to combo with cards that cheat out a second one on the same turn. In addition, The Ancient One himself is basically never going to die to minions, but can still get destroyed by hard removal, or even just a minion with [[WeaksauceWeakness Taunt]]. It's also usually better to have two 9/9s rather than one 30/30 unless you're going for the OTK, since that gives your damage more flexibility. Still, the sheer RuleOfCool of this thing has led to a lot of people creating joke decks that summon him.
** ''Journey to Un'Goro'' introduced Quests for each of the classes - Legendary spells that give you an overpowered card after you complete certain objectives. Paladin got the short end of the stick, however. Their quest, '''The Last Kaleidosaur''', requires them to buff six friendly minions (a task requiring at least 6 spells, minions to stay on your board, and a few turns of set-up). The reward is '''Galvadon''', a 5 mana 5/5 that Adapts five times[[note]]Choose one of three random effects, generated from a list of ten. Repeat five times[[/note]]. In theory, you could make a 14/5 Windfury with Stealth, or a 5/14 Taunt that can't be targeted by spells. In reality, you will rarely create your dream Galvadon. The randomness ensures that you'll end up making some kind of half-breed of effects, and you get a lot of useless repeat options (ex: two Windfuries do nothing). Also, Galvadon is just a minion, and there's no Charge adaptation. If you didn't get Stealth or set up an OTK, he'll just get removed.
*** The Warlock quest '''Lakkari Sacrifice''' falls into the same category. It requires them to discard 6 cards - a task that required ''at least'' 9 cards (6 discards, 3 double-discarders), but usually more. The reward is a LOT stronger than Galvadon - an indestructible portal that spawns two 3/2 imps for you every turn, but it's a value play rather than an OTK, it comes out too late to have enough impact, and the time to complete the quest is inconsistent because you can always end up discarding other cards with a discard effect. They had to print a 4-mana card that discarded your entire hand to make it any good.
** '''Rin, the First Disciple''' ZigZags this. On paper, just by looking at what cards she generates tells, anyone with experience with card games how squarely it falls under this trope. She has a Deathrattle which gives a spell called "The First Seal". Using it summons a 2/2 demon for a whopping 5 mana and gives you "The Second Seal", also costing 5 mana. "The Second Seal" summons a 3/3 and puts "The Third Seal" in your hand, which summons a 4/4, and so on, until you reach the fifth card -- "The Final Seal", and that gives you a 6/6 and ''finally'' gives you the ultimate reward: "Azari the Devourer", a whopping 10-mana 10/10 demon that destroys your opponent's deck. So for a whopping 31 mana, you get a 10-mana minion that doesn't do anything to the board when it's played, and by the time you can play it, assuming you haven't died, your opponent has likely drawn at least a half to two-thirds of their deck. This takes several turns of effort to complete and is horrible for tempo[[note]]Keeping a "lead" on the board[[/note]], but in practice, control Warlock has [[StoneWall so much insane defensive cards, healing, and board clears (but no burst damage)]] that forcing the opponent to go into fatigue works as a win condition for them.
** '''The Darkness''' is a 20/20, which is enormous for any playable minion, let alone one that costs a mere 4 mana. The catch is that it starts out dormant - it can't attack or be attacked, and it's unaffected by any other effects, so you spent that 4 mana just to clog up your board. Its Battlecry shuffles 3 Candles into your opponent's deck, and The Darkness can only awaken and start attacking if your opponent draws all three, and that's a pretty big ''if''. And if your opponent happens to overdraw a Candle or discard one directly from the deck? Tough luck, because The Darkness is now stuck in its dormant state for the rest of the game. And even if the third candle is drawn (which will most likely be on the opponent's turn), The Darkness dies to hard removal just as easily as any other minion.
** '''Astral Communion''' is a 4-mana spell that instantly ''maxes out'' your mana crystals, letting you accelerate your mana growth by up to 6 turns. That's the "awesome" part. However, the trade-off is that casting the spell also discards your entire hand, and having that much mana isn't very useful if you have no cards to use it on. You'll also be relying completely on top-decking for the next few turns, hoping to get something that can capitalize on Astral Communion before the opponent manages to either catch up in mana or just straight-up kill you because you couldn't draw anything good.
** '''Emeriss''' is a very powerful minion... stuck in the worst class it could possibly be in. Doubling the stats of the minions in your hand is an extremely powerful effect, but Hunters have a very hard time making good use of it. Hunters traditionally have not been a good control class and have one of the worst card draw among any class, so by the time you can play Emeriss, you will likely not hit enough minions to make her Battlecry make a big enough impact to win the game over a long run. There's also the issue that it's a 10-mana minion with no immediate board impact, so it's a late-game value play more than anything else.
** On his own, The Lich King is a perfectly solid 8-mana 8/8 with Taunt that adds a Death Knight card to your hand at the end of the turn, giving you solid value in just about any situation. While said Death Knight cards are all powerful for their mana costs, some of them fall into this category with various drawbacks.
*** '''Obliterate''' kills any minion with no questions asked for a minuscule 2 mana, but it also causes backlash damage to your hero equal to that minion's health; depending on your class, this can range from inconsequential to potentially detrimental, and is generally not good for killing things with very high health.
*** '''Doom Pact''' destroys every minion on the board for a relatively cheap 5 mana, but also has the steep cost of discarding a card from your deck for each minion destroyed. As such, it's usually saved for when you're in fatigue already and thus ignore the drawback or [[GodzillaThreshold you're one turn away from losing]], but even in the latter case you may risk throwing away your own win condition.
*** '''Army of the Dead''' is easily the Death Knight card most dependent on the RandomNumberGod. It's a 6-mana spell that discards the top 5 cards of your deck and summons any minions among them. Great if it generates a huge board swing in your favor, not so good if it ends up milling 5 spells (or even worse, your hero card). It's also the Death Knight card that's most dependent on your actual deck, as it's obviously much worse in a spell-heavy deck than a minion-heavy one.
** '''Duskfallen Aviana''' makes the first card you play each turn cost 0 mana, which is obviously a pretty good effect. The problem is that it also applies to the opponent, and because you usually have to play Aviana to get her on the board, they get to use the effect first. This usually results in the opponent using Aviana's effect to get any one card for free and then destroying her so that you can't do the same, resulting in you giving them the advantage without anything to show for it.
** '''Hakkar, the Soul-Flayer''' has a Deathrattle effect that shuffles a Corrupted Blood into each player's deck; when drawn, it damages the holder and then shuffles two more copies of itself in, meaning that the Corrupted Blood will eventually spread far enough to kill the player. But because it's a Deathrattle effect on a 10-mana minion that takes time to ramp up to critical mass and depends on your opponent drawing a specific card, this effect is ''horrendously slow'' and can be dismantled by a transform or silence effect. Hakkar himself also has god-awful stats to begin with and doesn't do anything the turn he comes down, giving your opponent a free turn to wail on your face.
*** The one deck Hakkar does find use in, however, is in mill-based Druid combo decks, who's capable of pulling out Hakkar and killing him on the same turn. Considering how Corrupted Blood works, Naturalize is extremely synergistic with it, and compared to Togwaggle Druid, Hakkar Druid is better at killing the opponent directly.
** '''Marin the Fox''' summons a Master Chest for your opponent when played; if you then destroy the chest, you get one of four fantastic treasures with powerful effects like filling your hand with copies of a drawn card or summoning two copies of a Legendary minion. The problem is, the Chest has 8 health, and Marin sits at an awful 8 mana 6/6 statline. Without external assistance, it takes ''three turns'' for Marin to break the chest, and that's without considering that sinking 8 mana into a minion that does nothing when it comes down and has horrid stats is pretty much equivalent to giving your opponent a free turn. Further more, your opponent is free to buff the chest and use it to smack you around (''especially'' Priests, as giving a high-health minion to the class with Divine Spirit and Inner Fire is practically handing your opponent a loaded gun and sticking your face in front of it). You ''could'' play Marin while you have other minions on the board and use those to break the chest, but let's face it - if you have that much board control, you're probably winning even without Marin's treasure and are thus better off going for the face instead.
** In general, any minion that costs a significant amount of mana (usually 8 or more) that doesn't do anything on the turn it comes down is usually considered not worth playing, no matter how good its stats are, as they almost always make very inviting targets for enemy removal, potentially rendering your mana investment moot. This is the main difference between cards like Gruul (whose +1/+1 every turn is potentially devastating but also quite slow to get going), which saw almost no play, and Ragnaros the Firelord (whose end-of-turn effect either kills a minion or deals a hideous amount of face damage), which was good enough to be kicked out of Standard. Exceptions are made for minions with powerful, game-winning effects (like Malygos), which tend to get played in dedicated decks with ways to get around their prohibitive mana costs.
** It's possible to become Immune with Demon Hunter for 0 mana via Blur, then play Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate, which has a chance to cast Rod of Roasting, which cast Pyroblasts until a hero dies, and since their hero is Immune, only the opponent can ever take damage from Pyroblast, guarranteeing a win. However, this is wildly impractical; first, Demon Hunters don't like to run a lot of spells, making them poor candidates for plays with Yogg-Saron. Secondly, even if Yogg does go off, it only has a 5 percent chance of selecting Rod of Roasting, making it very unlikely they'll be able to take advantage of the combo.
* AWinnerIsYou: As amazing as Mechazod is, many players have wished that he received a death sequence when you defeat him during the Tavern Brawl, rather than just going straight into the "Victory" screen. Later Tavern Brawls fixed this issue though, seeing the following co-op Tavern Brawl boss, Nefarian, dies in a spectacular fashion.
* BadassAdorable: Some cards have rather cutesy name and/or artwork (Lil' Exorcist, Wee Spellstopper, Pint-Sized Summoner, to name but a few), but this doesn't stop them from being effective in combat. Special mention to the Annoy-o-Trons, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBJFEoAJvo which have been known to tank TWO Deathwings at once]], and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK0u3Oe4fZw Whirling Zap-o-Matic which can end you in THREE turns if left unchecked.]]
* BadassBoast: A few of the lines from the heroes and minions. Also from the Witchwood trailer: "We are the beasts that monsters fear!"
* BadBoss: It's one thing to send your minions to die, it's another thing to actually destroy them directly with your own cards. Do note that [[ViolationOfCommonSense killing or damaging your own minions can be advantageous]]- one feasible strategy is to smack an Enrage minion with a nominal amount of damage in order to get their attack sky-high quickly.
** Judging from his name, Abusive Sergeant would seem to be one but it doesn't really reflect in gameplay since he actually boosts the attack of a minion. Cruel Taskmaster, on the other hand, actually damages a minion when he is played (although he can also use his effect on an enemy minion, which has obvious applications with things like Execute).
** Lampshaded with the Void Terror's [[note]]destroys friendly minions on either side of it to add their total attack and defense to its stats[[/note]] flavor text:
--->''If you put this into your deck, you WILL lose the trust of your other minions.''
** Being a BadBoss and pinging your own creatures is the main shtick of the Grim Patron deck, as Grim Patrons summon yet more Grim Patrons if they take damage and survive.
** Frost Lich Jaina can invoke this as well: Her hero power deals 1 damage, and if that damage kills a minion, she will get herself a new Water Elemental. Nothing prevents you from killing your own minion to 'upgrade' it into a Water Elemental.
* TheBadGuyWins: The League of E.V.I.L.'s Dalaran heist in ''Rise of Shadows'' goes off without a hitch, as evidenced by their HostileShowTakeover of the Midsummer Fire Festival and the trailer of ''Saviors of Uldum''.
* BadLuckMitigationMechanic: The developers have stated that on average they expect a player to receive one legendary card for every 20 card packs they open. However, when a new expansion is released, there is a guaranteed legendary somewhere in the first 10 packs the player opens. Additionally, if a player opens 39 packs without a legendary, the 40th will be guaranteed to have one.
* BaitAndSwitchBoss: The battle with Flikk in Trial by Felfire appears to be a straightforward fight...until a Rusted Fel Reaver, the real boss, shows up and crushes him.
* BarBrawl: Invoked and simulated by the Grim Guzzler encounter and the card you get from it. Invoked even more specifically with the Tavern Brawl game mode.
* BarrierWarrior: Paladins cards are able to give a minion Divine Shield and have synergy effects based around them.
* BattleCry: Cards with the trope name cause an effect whenever played through normal means. From dealing damage, to summoning creatures, to silencing minions, or, in the case of Jaraxxus to replacing your hero. Most legendary cards also enter to a battlecry of their choice.
-->'''Tirion Fordring:''' ''Put your faith in the Light!''
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Players can "concede" if they are certain they will be defeated, which is effectively a suicide option, saving time for everyone involved and denying the opponent the chance to get the killing blow.
** Garrosh's "I choose death!" is even more interesting when you realize that his game-opener line is "Victory or Death!"
** It's also quite common for beaten players to commit suicide with their cards instead of choosing "concede"--with style points for showy or elaborate suicides (e.g. buffing an enemy minion, attacking the minion to take damage, then being [[CherryTapping cherry tapped]] by the minion's deathrattle).
* {{BFS}}: A lot of Paladin weapons fall under this. The Truesilver Champion heals him as he attacks, the Sword of Justice buffs minions he summons at the cost of durability, and the Ashbringer (equipped when Tirion Fordring dies) is just a really big, really tough sword. Old Gods introduced the Rallying Blade, which gives all Uther's minions with Divine Shield an extra +1/+1
** Instructor Razuvious of Naxxramas has his Massive Runeblade, which deals double damage to heroes. [[OhCrap In Heroic, it has 10 base damage.]]
* BigBallOfViolence: The visual effect of using the Warrior's ''Brawl'' card.
* BigDamnHeroes: This is the main flavour of the Paladin Secrets. Whereas Mage, Hunter, and Rogue Secrets are all about traps and trickery, Paladin Secrets are about heroes bursting in to save the day out of nowhere, as well as the occasional act of divine intervention. The classic example is Noble Sacrifice, where a soldier [[HeroicSacrifice gives his life to protect another minion]], but there's also Galloping Savior (a horse charges into the battlefield to defend you), Getaway Kodo (a minion is rescued right as they're about to die), and Judgment of Justice (an enemy minion is restrained and weakened right as they're about to attack).
* BodyHorror: Plus AndIMustScream, but overall PlayedForLaughs with the flavor text of ''Devolve''. The art even shows the BigBadEnsemble of the expansion pack (Don Hancho, Aya Blackpaw and Kazakus) being turned into Murlocs.
-->Ragnaros looked down. He looked like some kind of War Golem. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME," he yelled. But all that came out was a deep grinding sound. He began to cry.
* BoringButPractical
** Weak but cost-efficient cards for their effects. Yes, it's intimidating to have a Deathwing on your side of the field, but remember that the costly 10 Mana and hand-wiping card can just be undone instantly by a Big Game Hunter (Battlecry: destroy one minion with more than 7 attack) costing only 5 mana. Similarly, possessing a cheap Silence card can topple enemy strategies contingent on a single minion's effect, which can go a long way toward winning.
** Basic cards for each class are usually not enough to make crazy strategies or decks from, but they are solid cost-efficient cards that you can always depend on. They're easy to make an effective deck with, even by beginners, but careful play by an expert can trump any number of fancy strategies. It's a commonly-cited fact that several of Hearthstone's top players have made it to Legend rank (the highest tier in ranked play) multiple times over using purely basic decks to prove a point. Unfortunately, PowerCreep eventually set in, making this much harder as time goes on and more cards that outperform their Basic counterparts are released, until they were retired for the Core set.
** The Boulderfist Ogre and Chillwind Yeti, available for all players, [[VanillaCard don't have any card effects]] but were the kings of stat-to-cost value back in the early days, often forcing your opponent to trade 2-for-1 or burn an expensive removal card to get rid of them.
--->'''Boulderfist Ogre's flavor text:''' [[LampshadeHanging ME HAVE GOOD STATS FOR THE COST]]
** Bloodmage Thalnos is infamous for this. With spell damage +1 and "Deathrattle: Draw a card", Thalnos is merely a mashup of two common cards, Kobold Geomancer and Loot Hoarder. However, having both effects on a single card is very useful, and Thalnos is used in a wide variety of decks. This doesn't stop players from putting off crafting Thalnos and prioritizing flashier legendaries.
** Some of the Neutral card-drawing cards, such as Loot Hoarder and Novice Engineer, may not be as amazing as some of the flashier card-drawing cards or combos, but their cheap cost, relatively reliable self-replacing effects, and the fact it puts stats on the board can do wonders in getting your actual game-winning cards to use later in the game.
** The Mage's ''Flamestrike'' is a basic card, meaning it's common and everyone has one. But it's one of the most powerful enemy-only-targeting board clear spells in the game, and it set the gold standard to judge others. A single application of this spell at the right moment can completely reverse the tempo of the game.
** Ancient Watcher (which has the same stats as Chillwind Yeti for half the cost but can't attack) is a great card if you can give it either taunt or silence it so it can attack (or, if you're a Warlock, use it with Shadowflame as an improvised Flamestrike). Of course, without either, [[JokeCharacter it's almost completely useless]].
** For decks, there are zookeeper and the much-maligned 'Face Hunter' deck. Both decks rely on cheap, low mana cost minions, with zoolock focusing in cost efficiency and good trades, while face hunter simply attacks the enemy character with everything it has, and are extremely powerful, with zoo gaining fast board control, and face hunter quickly whittling down the opponent, unless an effective counter is found. Zoo was one of the top decks during Spring and Summer of 2014, while face hunter has been one of the strongest from Spring 2015 to today.
** Dr. Boom, one of the most broken cards in the game to the point where even the devs admit he was made too strong, is also fairly straightforward; he's a 7/7 for 7 mana that summons 2 1/1 Boom Bots that deal damage to random enemies on death.
** The main appeal of C'Thun and his cultists is that they're effectively ''Hearthstone's'' starter deck, and as such they're designed to be pretty easy to use together and play with. Basically, the cultists are cost-efficient minions that trade standard effects for the ability to buff their master C'Thun, or activate powerful yet straight-forward effects if C'Thun has enough attack. The Old God himself has a pretty simple ability as well, dealing damage split amongst all enemies equal to his own attack.
** Pyroblast, despite being an epic, is merely a 10 mana spell that deals 10 damage. It's not flashy, it's a little more dust intensive than it ought to be, and it's less efficient than Fireball, but it also only consumes a single card slot while dealing a ''third'' of the opponent's health, so it works just fine.
** Compared to the other Old Gods (and most 10-cost minions in general), Y'Shaarj is nothing spectacular, merely summoning a minion from your deck at the end of each turn, and is usually deemed the weakest of the bunch. There are two key differences between him and his competition; he has some of the ''highest raw stats'' of any minion in the game, being a 10/10 by default (Beaten out only by the 11/11 Thaddius and the 12/12 Deathwing and equal to the Faceless Behemoth) and summoning more stats with each turn, and he has no deckbuilding requirements, meaning that if you lack the support cards of the other 10-cost cards Y'Shaarj can be slapped into a minion-heavy deck and be happy to do his job. Y'Shaarj would later get a popularity boost with the release of ''One Night in Karazhan''[='=]s Barnes. Barnes can summon a 1/1 copy of Y'Shaarj from your deck...which could then pull out the actual Y'Shaarj from your deck.
* BlackAndNerdy: The Judicious Junior paladin card from the Scholomance Academy expansion is a smart black teenage girl. Her art shows her carrying a huge book, her summon quote shows that she actually enjoys test-taking, and her attack quote is "Aced it!"
** Becomes HarsherInHindsight when it's revealed that this card depicts [[spoiler:Tamsin Roame]] before she died and became a Warlock.
* BossBattle: Aside from the ''actual'' bosses from the adventures, ''Hearthstone'' follows the card game trend of psychotically powerful yet hard to summon monsters capable of ending games by themselves, much like the tried and true formula of a boss fight.
** The Warlock card Lord Jaraxxus is easily the most famous of these. Upon summoning, he replaces Gul'dan with himself, equipped with a 3/8 weapon, 15 HP, and a hero power that summons a 6/6 for 2 mana. Lord Jaraxxus can [[RushBoss end games ridiculously fast]] thanks to his raw damage output, and is all but unbeatable without burst damage or an existing board. [[LargeHam His exclusive emotes are a plus.]]
*** Majordomo Executus, [[AwesomeButImpractical though less useful]], fulfills a similar niche as a neutral card, being a 9/7 for 9 mana by default who replaces his hero with an [[GlassCannon 8 HP]] [[PlayingWithFire Ragnaros the Firelord]] on death, with the hero power of dealing 8 damage to a random enemy. [[RunningGag Again, the emotes are awesome.]]
** Anub'arak, exclusive to Rogues, is a 9 mana 8/4 who summons a 4/4 Nerubian on death and then cozily places himself back into his owner's hand. While he dies ''very'' easily, the fact that he can't truly be killed without silencing or stealing him makes his health a non-issue as long as his owner is willing to pay for his hefty mana cost, and his gigantic attack makes him too threatening to leave alive. His only real issue was being given to Rogue, a class without any good Control deck tools outside of Anub'arak himself.
** The Golden Monkey is a 4 mana 6/6 with taunt who replaces ''every single card'' in your hand and deck with legendary minions, such as Ragnaros the Firelord, Dr. Boom, and just about every other card on this list. Actually ''getting it'' is fairly hard however, as it requires you to play Elise Starseeker, who shuffles the Map to the Golden Monkey into your deck, draw ''that'', play it so it shuffles the Monkey into your deck, then draw the Monkey, and then finally play it when you know you won't be needing your other cards anymore.
** C'Thun starts out as a measly 10 mana 6/6 who deals his attack damage randomly split amongst all enemies, but he boasts his own archetype of cards that either boost his stats or gain bonuses if he has at least 10 attack. With enough buffers, he can easily reach an attack and health of over 16/16, making him all but unkillable without hard removal and able to wipe out the entire enemy board on summoning.
** N'Zoth is a 10 mana 5/7 who summons every single friendly deathrattle minion that died that game, a list which includes monstrously powerful, high-cost cards like Tirion Fordring and Sylvanas Windrunner. A sufficiently large, durable N'Zoth board is effectively unbeatable without a complete board wipe like Twisting Nether or Deathwing. It gets crazy when he can access older formats, where he can revive the bulky Sludge Belcher and the sticky Piloted Shredder.
** Raid Boss Onyxia is not only a 10 mana 8/8 with Rush, she fills that board with 2/1 Whelps that also have Rush and she's ''Immune'' while any of her Whelps remain on the board. Just like a boss fight, you have to carve your way through her mooks before you can challenge the boss.
* BossInMookClothing:
** The Giant cards. Their effects lower their mana costs based on particular aspects of the match (Sea Giant costs 1 less per minion on the board, Mountain Giant costs 1 less per card in the owner's hand, Clockwork Giant costs 1 less per card in the ''opponents'' hand, Molten Giant costs 1 less per owner's health missing, and Frost Giant costs 1 less for every time the owner used their hero power), meaning they can come out fairly early, with the Molten Giant and Sea Giant having the capability of costing ''0'' depending on the circumstances. They also have 8/8 stats, making them on par with the 8 mana Ironbark Protector.
** Edwin [=VanCleef=], who starts as a 2/2 for 3, but gains +2/+2 for every other card played within the turn before he is summoned. Proper play can result in a 12/12 as early as turn 5, a set of stats matched by the 10 mana Deathwing.
** The Priest's Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combo can make any high-health minion frighteningly powerful by doubling its health and then boosting its attack to the same amount. This can turn something like the lowly 1/7 Mogushan Warden into a '''14/14'''.
** Shamans got a particularly nasty one in ''Kobolds and Catacombs''. Lightwarden, from Classic, is a piddly 1/2 that gets +2 Attack each time a character is healed. Doesn't sound too bad... until you let it survive a turn and the Shaman casts Healing Rain, which heals random friendly characters ''12 times''.
* BreakTheHaughty: So you're winning this game since the start. Board control, card advantage, everything, and your advantage keeps on mounting. Then you start to gloat your superiority.... [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTkb-ONnWyw and the Random Number God decides to side with your enemy, as your Laser-Guided Karma.]]
* BreatherEpisode: ''One Night in Karazhan'' was intentionally made LighterAndSofter following immediately after ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', which was surprisingly dark by ''Hearthstone'' standards.
** Ditto ''Kobolds & Catacombs'', a whimsical tribute to classic dungeon crawls following right after DarkerAndEdgier ''Knights of the Frozen Throne''.
* BribingYourWayToVictory:
** It's a CollectibleCardGame, so this is unavoidable since a rich player can buy lots of booster packs, but there are some mechanics in place to mitigate it: You can earn cards (more slowly) through regular playing and completing daily challenges, and you're limited to no more than two of any particular card per deck. As it stands, money can only buy booster packs, whose contents are determined randomly anyway, and easier access to the single-player Adventure wings, though these are also purchasable with gold and the card rewards have to be earned anyways. So while money can get you options, it can't directly buy you power.
** Averted with Arena mode, where players must choose from 3 random heroes and construct their decks from a pre-set list of cards, eliminating any advantage from grinding or paying for great cards for fairness' sake. The only advantage a player can get is through experience with the game ([[LuckBasedMission and a healthy dose of sheer dumb luck]]).
** Reinforced with "Adventure Mode" however. Each adventure consists of several 'wings' with card rewards for completing each fight in that wing. But unless you're willing to fork out cash to buy the adventures all at once you're in for a lot of grinding to unlock all the wings of the adventures. Twenty-five dollars for the whole adventure or 700 gold PER WING. 700 gold represents about a week of grinding, at the very least. Oh and those card rewards you get for playing through? Very powerful cards that CANNOT BE CRAFTED. You have to earn them through adventure, many are mandatory in most decks. These are arguably one of the most "Pay to win" aspects of the game.
** Worth noting is that, as stated under BoringButPractical, it's possible to actually make a pretty decent deck with the cards you start out with. Essentially the neutral Basic collection is full of simple, no frills cards with easy to understand effects, whereas Expert cards are more situational and strategic. People can (and have) made competitive decks using only Basic cards, but they don't tend to have any complex strategies or combos like the Expert level decks do.
** In Battlegrounds mode; one can buy 'Perks'. These mostly provide non-advantageous benefits like emotes and stat tracking, but also allow you a choice of 4 Heroes instead of only 2. This makes it much more likly that someone with Perks can roll a hero seen as high-tier; or one with a power that synergises with the minion pool that game. Tavernkeeper Bob will also somewhat frequently encourage players to buy perks to 'take their strategy to the next level'.
* CallBack:
** 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)[[/note]].
* CameBackStrong: Several Legendary minions in ''Ashes of Outland'' are above average early-game minions which have a Deathrattle that shuffles in a [[OneWingedAngel Prime]] version of themselves into the deck, with higher cost and a powerful effect to match.
* CanonForeigner: 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 ''[[HeelFaceTurn "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.
* CanonImmigrant: 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''.
* CardBattleGame: The TropeCodifier. 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 ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', 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.
* CardCarryingVillain: 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. [[RuleOfFunny Of course, we wouldn't have it any other way]].
* CastFromHitPoints: Warlocks commonly sacrifice their health for spells and summons, including their hero power. Can be mitigated in part by LifeDrain 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[[/note]] 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!
* TheCavalry: 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 leadning the pack.
* CementShoes: The Warrior spell ''Sleep with the Fishes'' displays this... which, funnily enough, is a [[FishPeople Murloc]]. Even his expression was a confused shrug.
* CerebusSyndrome: ''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 [[TheComicallySerious comically serious]] FourthWallObserver, though.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn:
** "Core set" Murlocs are similar to their ''World of Warcraft'' counterparts: cheap, semi-sentient creatures that rely on crude ZergRush 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, [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot 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 EvilLaugh and a grunt. When he hit BreakoutCharacter status, the team went back and defined his personality, settling on a DitzyGenius with a short fuse and nonsensical motives.
* CherryTapping: 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 [[DeathOfAThousandCuts keep throwing rocks him until he dies.]]
* ChromaticRockPaperScissors: In Mercenaries mode, Protectors (red) beat Fighters (green) which beat Casters (blue) which beat Protectors.
* CloakOfDefense: 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.
* ColorCodedItemTiers: A semi-subversion. Cards follow the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 BoringButPractical, 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).
* CombatBreakdown: 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.
* CombiningMecha:
** 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).
* ComboBreaker:
** '''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 [[OneHitKill 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.
* ACommanderIsYou: 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 RedShirts 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 CannonFodder 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.
* ComputersAreFast: 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 GameBreakingBug below.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: 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[[/note]], in addition to cheap exclusive spells and several cards with no card limit [[note]]as in, breaking the two-copies-per-deck rule[[/note]], 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.[[/note]] That's not the cheating part, however - if you manage to give Mr. Bigglesworth Taunt with a card like Houndmaster or Defender of Argus, [[http://youtu.be/Wl8Ngc8oHXQ 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, [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration 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.[[/note]]
** 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 [[spoiler: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 GameBreaker 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 OneHitKill you with a 100 damage tornado hero power (it's all a reference to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''). If you don't finish her by turn 8, she will cast [[RocksFallEverybodyDies 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wUmnBoK83E 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 [[DeathOrGloryAttack 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.
* ContinuityNod: The various pieces of music played while the matchmaker reel is spinning are taken from the ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' soundtrack (still considered by many as one of the greatest RTS soundtracks of all time).
* CoolButInefficient: 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 BoringButPractical deck but are very entertaining if they actually succeed. One example is the ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Smm6MyySqQ 35 legendary deck]]'' (with Prince Malchezaar to shuffle in 5 more legendaries to your deck). Even remotely competitive? Heck no. Fun? Heck yes.
* CosmeticAward: 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 AttackAttackAttack, 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.
* CripplingOverspecialization: Some cards can only be considered useful when very specific conditions are met. Hemet Nesingwary[[note]]Battlecry: Destroy a Beast[[/note]], 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.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: As a saying among the CollectibleCardGame 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.
* CriticalFailure: 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 [[http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/33168-yogg-saron-hopes-end 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 CallBack on Validated Doomsayer's flavor text.
* CrutchCharacter:
** "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.
* CursedWithAwesome:
** 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 [[YouShallNotPass 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!
* CuteMonsterGirl: 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 [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Witchwood_Piper 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.
* CuttingTheKnot: Clever outside-the-box thinking can lead players to different, sometimes simpler, solutions to several scenarios in the Puzzle Labs.
* CycleOfHurting:
** 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. WordOfGod 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''), [[https://youtu.be/a0d9CWerjfQ?t=38 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 [[DeathOfAThousandCuts 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.[[/note]] See the DeathOfAThousandCuts 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[[/note]] manages to obtain a ''Coldarra Drake''[[note]]You can use your hero power any number of times per turn[[/note]], 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 [[https://youtu.be/J6_TOYTrSKA?t=204 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.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory:
** 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'', [[YetAnotherStupidDeath killing themselves instantly]].
** Many a horror stories where players [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G14iIvaxAYI misclick the Concede button by accident.]] This was apparently such a major issue that the concede button was [[BigRedButton recolored red]] after ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' came out, making it less likely for the player to accidentally press it.
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: 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 OneHitKill 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.
* DarkerAndEdgier:
** Invoked with ''Whispers of the Old Gods''. While the last several expansions went the road of LighterAndSofter (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 [[EldritchAbomination Old Gods]] with their corruption and influence to the Hearthstone universe. Just for an examples, compare the lighthearted nature of the cinematic trailers for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijyMZPIsj5E GvG]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe7XDBtlQzg TGT]] to the chilling atmostphere for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKjUgLrDEbI Whisper]]''. However, the expansion itself is still filled with much of the same humor in other expansions. Cards like Validated Doomsayer and [[GoodCounterpart 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 FlavorText on their flagship Legendaries (i.e, the four Old Gods). There's ''nothing'' funny regarding the FlavorText of ''Knights''' flagship Legendaries, all of them are dead-serious quotes said by the now-undead Heroes.
* ADayInTheLimelight: 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.
* DeathIsDramatic:
** 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.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5qjhSopKg 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 whan 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.
* DeathOrGloryAttack:
** Several cards can be this. For instance, summoning [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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 [[OneHitKill removal]] or [[HoistByHisOwnPetard 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.
* DefeatMeansPlayable: 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.
* DeflectorShield: 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.
* DeliberatelyDifferentDescription: The FlavorText 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.
* DemotedToExtra: In contrast to characters like [[AscendedExtra 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 [[PromotedToPlayable 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 BigBad behind two of the adventures.
* DevelopersForesight: 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 [[spoiler: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 [[BigNo "NOOOOO!"]] ('''Spectral Rider''').
** Continues in Blackrock Mountain. If you kill Emperor Thaurissan after killing Moira (which, due to [[OneHitKO 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 "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis 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[[/note]], and the Lich King will be outraged by this [[BreakingTheFourthWall "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 [[OhCrap 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[[/note]] 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.
* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: The practice of [=BMing=][[note]]Bad Manners[[/note]], 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. [[https://youtu.be/3fZLvJwzttU?t=77 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.]]
* DidntSeeThatComing: 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. [[https://youtu.be/pcA7H7FU2Mo?t=360 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.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Meta example, but it is possible, with the blessings of [[RandomNumberGod 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. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4mhO8nCUls 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[[/note]]
* DifficultButAwesome:
** 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 [[LargeHam 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 [[BoringButPractical 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 AwesomeButImpractical 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.
* DiskOneNuke:
** 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.
* DistaffCounterpart: 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.
* DownToTheLastPlay: 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.
* DrillSergeantNasty: The Abusive Sergeant, "PUT ME IN YOUR DECK, MAGGOT!"
* DropTheHammer: Most of the Shaman's weapons are war hammers. Warrior has a couple as well. Then there's Ragnaros and his colossal Sulfuras.
** Two literal hammer drops as well: Emperor Thaurissan enters the game board via a huge hammer slamming onto the board, while Magni Bronzebeard's hero power animation includes a smaller forge hammer striking his hero power button.
* DynamicEntry: 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.'' [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Deathwing,_Mad_Aspect Deathwing, Mad Aspect]] is even more visually dynamic; he attacks ''everything''.
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** Before the full release of the ''Goblins vs. Gnomes'' expansion set, the cards from the sets were made able to be drafted in Arena mode 4 days before the official release.
** A few cards have been given out to all players before their proper debut in their respective set and were allowed to be drafted freely in constructed decks, starting with a golden Volcanosaur for ''Journey to Un'Goro''. Other cards that joined the list are Marin the Fox, Archmage Vargoth, Sathrovarr, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Transfer Student, and Silas Darkmoon. Other than Vargoth and Kael'thas, most of them were average Arena or meme tier cards that didn't make much of a splash in the constructed meta.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** Almost every Basic and Classic card that affects both sides of the board has the word 'ALL' written in caps like that. This was [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Poison_Seeds immediately]] dropped, although older cards haven't been updated.
** The earliest sets (pretty much everything until ''Whispers of the Old Gods'') recycled art from the discontinued World of Warcraft TCG for almost every card. This gave the game a much grittier look, compared to the slightly more cartoony style players are familiar with now. It also meant the early sets didn't have as strong of a theme or location.
** [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Dragonkin_Sorcerer Dragonkin Sorcerer]], [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Eydis_Darkbane Eydis Darkbane]], and [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Fjola_Lightbane Fjola Lightbane]] all had the word '''you''' bolded to denote that their effect only worked for their controller. No future cards do this.
* EatMe: Can be invoked during gameplay. One boss in Adventure Mode, Gnosh the Greatworm, has a Hero Power which allows him to devour your minions whole. If he eats a Poisonous minion, he'll die instantly.
* EnemySummoner:
** The ''Grim Patron'' card from Blackrock Depths is a [=3/3=] for 5 mana. Substandard for its cost, but if it survives any combat damage, it summons a fresh copy of itself, which can summon yet another fresh copy if it's damaged as well...
** ''Imp Master'' will summon a 1/1 imp at the end of each turn, and ''Murloc Knight'' will summon a random murloc as an Inspire ability... including the possibility of another Murloc Knight.
* EpicFail[=/=]SpannerInTheWorks: A mainstay of Hearthstone videos. The RandomNumberGod in this game can easily screw you over, with ''Doomsayer'' as its preferred harbinger. It's one thing when your enemy has that ''one'' card that dismantles your strategy, it's another when something ''you yourself summoned'' absolutely ruins you. [[https://youtu.be/GjbrCiIR89g Watch this streamer]] GoMadFromTheRevelation during one Tavern Brawl, for instance.
* EpicHail: Varian Wrynn's Battlecry lets you draw three cards and summon any minions from them for free.
-->'''Varian Wrynn:''' ''[against anyone except his son]'' Behold the armies of Stormwind!
** This becomes somewhat anticlimactic when said armies of Stormwind turn out to be nothing more than, for instance two Loot Hoarders and a Cruel Taskmaster, or if you draw only non-minion cards and get nothing on the board.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The innkeeper's name is actually Harth Stonebrew, [[AllThereInTheManual this is never mentioned in the game]].
* EvilIsHammy: Lord Jaraxxus, Eredar Lord of the Burning Legion is memetic for how ham-tastic all his lines are (minus his "Sorry" emote).
** The Tiny Knight of Evil from ''The Grand Tournament'' attempts to compensate for its size with pure ham (and evil):
--->'''Tiny Knight of Evil:''' Small in size, HUGE IN EEEVVVIIIL!
* EvilVersusOblivion: The reason Boommaster Flark is a boss in Dalaran Heist - The League of E.V.I.L. wants to steal the city of Dalaran, while Flark just wants to [[StuffBlowingUp blow it up.]]
** In the finale of the League of E.V.I.L. story in ''Galakrond's Awakening'', after Rafaam succeeds in awakening Galakrond [[spoiler:and uses him to wipe out the Alliance and Horde]], he decides to defeat Galakrond himself so that he doesn't end up wiping out all life on Azeroth.
* ExactWords: Failure to read a card's effects in-depth can lead to some nasty surprises. Most cards that affect ''all'' minions or characters will specify this, but otherwise unless a card specifies you or your opponent, assume it applies for everyone. For example, the legendary '''Kel'Thuzad''' brings allied minions that died each turn back to life once the turn is over. This includes both your ''and'' your opponent's turns!
** Special mention goes to the warlock spell "Sacrificial Pact". Its card text simply states, "Destroy a demon, your hero gains 5 health." It doesn't specify whether or not that demon must be a minion (or, despite the name, whether it even needs to be ''your'' demon), thus it becomes trivially easy for a warlock to kill '''[[LargeHam JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION]]'''
** Also noteworthy are cards that have the "50% chance to attack the wrong opponent" effect. "Attacking the wrong opponent" can occasionally result in bypassing minions with Taunt.
** The difference between ''playing'' and ''summoning'' a minion is key to several card effects--playing means selecting a card from your hand, spending its mana cost, and, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin playing it]]. Summoning is much more flexible: it just means a minion enters the board, whether it was played, generated by a hero power or another minion's battlecry, generated by a spell (like Animal Companion or Muster for Battle), pulled from your deck/hand (e.g. Patches or an enemy Deathlord), popped from a deathrattle (e.g. Sludge Belcher or Cairne Bloodhoof), etc.
*** An example of this distinction can be seen in some of the Quests from the Journey to Un'Goro expansion. The Hunter quest requires ''playing'' one cost minions, otherwise you could cheese it with just two copies of Unleash the Hounds. The Priest quest, on the other hand, just requires ''summoning'' deathrattle minions--so you can drop a few throughout the game and then finish the quest by re-summoning them with Priest's myriad resurrect effects or with N'Zoth in Wild.
* ExplosiveBreeder: Can be done with Shaman's Ancestral Spirit[[note]]Give a minion Deathrattle: Resummon this minion[[/note]], Reincarnate[[note]]Destroy a minion, triggering its Deathrattles and return it to life at full health[[/note]] and Baron Rivendare[[note]]Your minions trigger their Deathrattle twice[[/note]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVzAkm14Gc Watch it in action.]] Alternatively, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGANtgHJZ0 Grim Patron card from the Blackrock Mountain adventure.]]
** Similarly, Dreadsteeds summon a new copy of themselves whenever they die. Combine that with a way to bring dead minions back to life like Kel'Thuzad and you can quickly build yourself a Dreadstable.
** Spiritsinger Umbra activates any Deathrattle minion that is summoned, so Deathrattle minions that summon a minion are spawned instantly. If you do this on a Deathrattle minion that summons itself like say, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Doi1zANRU a Cruel Dinomancer with your only discarded minion being another Cruel Dinomancer]], then your entire board gets full with them.
* ExplosiveOverclocking:
** If you raise a minion's stat too high, the game's number-calculation mechanic[[note]]You may want to read about signed and unsigned data types in Wikipedia or Google; it's a rather geeky stuff[[/note]] will suddenly treat that number as negative. If that stat is health, this means the minion instantly dies. Of course, the maximum limit is a little over 2 billion, so it's not exactly ''likely'' to happen unless you're messing around with a friend.
** Another example is the hand size limit. You are allowed to keep up to 10 cards in hand; if you must draw cards but you already have 10 cards in hand, the cards that you would have drawn are automatically discarded. And also revealed to your opponent as they burn, to add insult to injury.
** The Warlock card Power Overwhelming fits this trope perfectly; it gives a friendly minion +4 Attack and Health, but that minion ''will'' die at the end of your turn. Horribly.
** Aluneth, the Legendary weapon for Mage which draws you three cards at the end of your turn. This amount of draw power is borderline absurd, and can be hugely powerful if you can play that many cards and not overdraw. [[BlessedWithSuck But there's also no way to turn it off]] and Aluneth can't be used to attack, meaning that it'll quickly deplete your deck and then keep drawing, resulting in massive fatigue damage that'll kill you in around two turns.
* FeatheredFiend: The Angry Chicken. It's normally a docile 1/1, but gains a massive +5 attack if you can injure it without killing it.
* FictionalZodiac: The game uses a Zodiac symbol to designate each yearly rotation for Standard format. Each year is named after an animal (usually a fictional one from the ''Warcraft'' universe), and the animal typically has something to do with one of the expansions for that year.
** The Year of the Kraken references the squid-like [[EldritchAbomination N'Zoth]] from ''Whispers of the Old Gods''.
** The Year of the Mammoth is for the LostWorld setting of ''Journey to Un'goro'' (although the set itself has no mammoths, but it does have a mastodon with FlavourText poking fun at it not being in the right year).
** The Year of the Raven calls to mind the GothicHorror setting of ''The Witchwood''.
** The Year of the Dragon was an early reference to the year's finale ''Descent of Dragons''.
** The Year of the Phoenix pulls a double-duty reference in ''Ashes of Outland'', first to ThePhoenix rising from the ashes, but also because phoenixes are a symbol of the blood elves and for Kael'thas in particular.
** The Year of the Gryphon refers to ''United in Stormwind'' and how gryphons are used by the Alliance as transport and aerial troops.
** The Year of the Hydra is based on the colossal ocean monsters from ''Voyage to the Sunken City'', Hydralodon in particular.
* FinishingMove:
** Nearly all decks have some high-damage spell(s) or other instant damage to act as a finisher, such as the LeeroyJenkins minion. This is especially important for rush or aggro decks who need to beat an opponent's HP down then finish the match ASAP.
** One of the purchasable cosmetics in Battlegrounds is special animations for getting a finishing blow on your enemy.
* FirstPlayerAdvantageMitigation: The developers knew that the first player would have a tempo advantage, and experimented with ways to give the second player their own advantages to compensate. They ended up going with two: The first is that they start with an extra card in their hand. The other is that they start with a copy of "The Coin", which gives them an extra Mana Crystal for one turn.
* FissionMailed: The fight against [[spoiler:the Lich King, where you are given a deck that cannot play a single card with the exception of [[JokeCharacter Magma Rager]] before he kills you. He then resurrects you as a Death Knight, and you get a CurbStompBattle against Tirion.]]
** Also the fight against Dragonslayer Skruk in ''Galakrond's Awakening''. The enemy is intentionally overpowered, with 200 health and increasingly buffed minions, but [[spoiler:when he destroys your hero, it's not game over: Chromie rewinds time and transforms into her real dragon form, with 60 health and the ability to take an extra turn for every normal turn]].
* ForcedTransformation:
** Mages can use [[ShapedLikeItself Polymorph]] to turn minions into a 1/1 Sheep and Shamans can use Hex to turn a minion into a 0/1 Toad that has Taunt. In ''The Grand Tournament'', Mages also got Polymorph: Boar; while it can be used to neutralize minions the old-fashioned way, it's also usable as a buff [[CursedWithAwesome since the boar is a 4/2 with Charge]].
** The Shaman's Devolve transforms all enemy minions into ones that cost 1 mana less than the originals, usually meaning that the opponent ends up with something weaker than what they started with. Of course, the wide range of minion stats available means that results can vary; woe betide the player that transforms their opponent's inoffensive 3/3 Antique Healbot into a 4-mana 7/7.
* ForcedTutorial: The player is put through a series of "quests" - battles against fixed opponents with stacked decks - to show them the ropes in a controlled environment. Finishing this unlocks ''the main menu''.
* FourthWallObserver: The Lich King in the ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' missions takes his card game very, very, ''very'' seriously. WordOfGod says they went with this approach instead of making him [[AdaptationDecay more comical]].
* FlavorText: ''Every'' card (except ones created by other cards, such as token minions or Ysera's Dream cards) has some kind of joke for its flavor text, as befits this LighterAndSofter game. Some of them are even funny.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Some cards that were previously considered laughably weak can become game-breakingly powerful with the addition of new cards and synergies. Stonetusk Boar, a 1 mana 1/1 with Charge? Weak. Stonetusk Boar after The Caverns Below or Dire Frenzy fills your deck with massive Stonetusk Boars? Start running.
* GatheringSteam:
** Mana accumulates at one crystal per turn until a maximum of 10 is reached.
** As part of their class identity, Druids have ways to accumulate more mana crystals early through the use of specific cards.
** Emperor Thaurissan is a card which reduces the cost to play any cards in your hand by 1 each turn he is in play, effectively reducing the time needed to gather enough steam to play those cards. However, most decks using Thaurissan only need his effect to go off once at the end of the turn he's played; whether he actually survives to the next turn with his below-average statline is irrelevant in most cases.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Hero-exclusive cards all fit the hero's theme, like having Beasts for Hunters/Druids, but Neutral cards are fair game for any deck. This can lead to some blatantly lore-defying situations like a Warlock having some holy knights fighting alongside his trademark demons or a Horde general having his forces composed of mostly cards aligned with the Alliance. It's even lampshaded with Cairne Bloodhoof's flavor text:
-->''Cairne was killed by Garrosh, so... don't put this guy in a Warrior deck. It's pretty insensitive.[[note]]Not that it's ever stopped anyone[[/note]]''
* GameBreakingBug: '''Nozdormu''' is famously broken. He's an 8/8 for 9 mana that causes both players to have a mere 15 seconds to complete their turn. It should be a simple gimmick, but because of how ''Hearthstone's'' mechanics work it becomes deceptively lethal. See, two ''Blackrock Mountain'' bosses, the Dark Iron Arena and Chromaggus, use this card in their decks, and if they play it you might as well concede because [[ComputersAreFast by the time the entire animation and the AI's actions finishes, in actuality the AI has already pressed the End Turn button long before Nozdormu even hits the board]], which means [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard your turn somehow has started before you even see the card you draw for the turn]], giving you 3 seconds to take action at best or lose your ''several next turns immediately'' at worst. What’s worse is while they patched it for the Dark Iron Arena the glitch is still present for Chromaggus, [[FakeDifficulty causing untold frustration upon many]]. Most importantly, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCDOZS_vceI players can pull off the glitch too]].
** What's more, it is easier for players on the desktop to queue up commands than it is on a tablet, leading Nozdormu to be considered "tablet/phone player loses."
** It is also considered somewhat anti-accessible- players who are visually impaired need extra time just to see what has happened and what new cards have been drawn. Some just concede if Nozdormu appears, as the game is no longer playable. Needless to say, for all the above reasons there are a lot of cries to have the card changed or removed.
** The ''League of Explorers'' expansion gave us the Rogue minion Unearthed Raptor, a 3/4 for 3 mana that has the Battlecry of copying the Deathrattle of a friendly minion. What a potentially fun and flexible card is quickly discovered can potentially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC-KXTJAhbE crash the game]] if used to many time when combined with Brann Bronzebeard (double your minions' Battlecry) and several returning effect. It got so bad that the game designers limited the potential to copy to 16 Deathrattle, and it ''still'' can freeze the system.
** ''Journey to Un'Goro'' replicates the Nozdormu exploit. Priest gets Shadow Visions[[note]]2 mana spell that lets you discover a copy of a spell in your deck - like ''another'' Shadow Visions for instance[[/note]] and Radiant Elemental[[note]]2 mana 2/3 Elemental that reduces the costs of your spells by 1[[/note]]. Two Radiant Elementals makes Shadow Visions completely free, letting the player constantly discover Shadow Visions over and over again. The combo does allow for silly things like insanely large Questing Adventurers, but looping Shadow Visions enough times can ''skip the opponent's turn'' due to the lengthy Discover animation. Unsurprisingly, this was hotfixed very quickly.
** '''Deck of Wonders''' can really expose the spaghetti code behind Hearthstone's game logic. What makes Deck of Wonders "buggy" is that when a Scroll of Wonders gets drawn, it uses the random spell then draws a card, but minion deaths don't get resolved ''before'' drawing the next card. So what can happen is if you draw multiple Scrolls of Wonder in a row, it will cause clearly unintentional effects like, for instance, dealing damage to a minion that's already dead several times then Vanish returns it to the opponent's hand and cancel out its death.
** If Majordomo Executus (who replaces his controller's hero with Ragnaros on death) and his controller are killed at the same time, the game soft-locks. The intention was for the player controlling Executus to lose without becoming Ragnaros if this happens, but it was never properly implemented.
* GenerationXerox: If Cairne Bloodhoof gets killed, he's immediately replaced by his stat-identical son Baine. [[note]]Identical in all but mana cost; Baine costs 1 less Mana than his father.[[/note]]
* GiantSpider: The Arachnid Quarter of Curse of Naxxramas is absolutely crawling with them. As for the final boss...
-->'''Kel'Thuzad:''' Maexxna is a [[CaptainObvious GIANT SPIDER]]! [[EvilLaugh MUWAHAHAHA]]!
* GodzillaThreshold:
** Some cards have powerful effect combined with severe drawbacks that can easily backfire on you. But in times of desperation, these drawbacks can be made moot, and playing these cards might give you a fighting chance or even win the game outright. The most iconic is perhaps [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Deathwing]], who causes you to discard your entire hand and kills everything on the field. When you're down to only a few cards in hand and the enemy has strong board control, there's nothing to lose.
** For Dungeon Run mode, there's ''Rod of Roasting'' which casts Pyroblast randomly until one of the heroes die. It's even lampshaded in the one of the loading tips.
--->''When everything else fails, there's always the Rod of Roasting.''
* GoKartingWithBowser: There isn't even an ExcusePlot, it's just Alliance and Horde (and neutral characters) in an inn, playing games with each other. Who says being sworn enemies on the battlefield means you can't enjoy a good drink and some trading card games?
* GoldColoredSuperiority:
** Golden versions of the heroes can be unlocked by winning with them 500 ranked games. ''Each.'' While Golden Heroes don't actually add any abilities, it can be used for strategic intimidation since your opponent will know immediately you have won ''a lot'' of ranked matches with that hero.
** In Battlegrounds, obtaining three copies of a minion will give you a golden version of that minion with their combined stats (including buffs) and a stronger version of its ability. Playing a golden minion also lets you Discover a free minion from the next Tavern Tier, meaning you usually want to grab golden minions whenever possible.
* GoneHorriblyRight: Card draw is vital in any card game, but overdrawing would burn your card and bring you that much closer to fatigue, or if you are already in fatigue, death. ''Northshire Cleric'' is a prime culprit of this if your enemy has an [=AoE=] heal effect, and having 2 ''Northshire Clerics'' on the board is.... not recommended.
* GoneHorriblyWrong: Courtesy of [=RNGeesus=] and the key component of the many {{Epic Fail}}s that are the mainstay of Hearthstone videos. Have fun summoning a Doomsayer who will wipe ''your'' board clear, summoning a big fat minion for the enemy for free, playing a Yogg only to have him Pyroblast himself on the first cast, getting your card draw mechanic turned against you and mill you into fatigue... The possibilities are endless.
* GoThroughMe: Taunt minions must be destroyed before you can attack cards without taunt or the enemy hero - with the exception of hero cards and spells, which make fair game of anything on the field. The Demon Hunter legendary Kayn Sunfury lets himself and anyone else on his side go through ''anyone''.
* GracefulLoser: Most heroes (with the exception of [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Garrosh]]) are this when they acknowledge their defeat in their Concede quotes. It's also customary to exchange "Well Played" emotes as a substitute for the time-honored "gg" or "good game".
* GratuitousDiscoSequence: Subverted with ''One Night in Karazhan''. The trailer for the adventure made it look like a fabulous disco party, but in the adventure proper these elements take a backseat to showcase ''Hearthstone's'' interpretation of what Karazhan might have looked like in its earlier days. There's still some disco-inspired stuff in there, of course (the getup for the Medivas, the music, etc.) but not as much as the trailer made out.
* GuideDangIt:
** The Hearthstone design philosophy for card text is to make the card text as simplistic and easy to read, but have decidedly leave out any detailed explanations for special cards and effects. If a card spawns another random card with widely varying effects, then it gets given some category but no mention of what it does. The only way to know what any of these cards do is to actually experience it yourself. The list of cards affected by this are extensive and only continues to grow.
*** From the original set: Ysera lets you draw a Dream Card. What's a Dream Card? A selection of 2 minions and 3 spells. Same goes for Elite Tauren Chieftain, which gives each player a Power Chord card. What are the Power Chord cards? 4 very different spells.
*** Even the most common and ubiquitous cards don't even get an explanation. The Hunter has the basic starter card "Animal Companion", a spell that summons a random Animal Companion. Unless you look it up, you have no idea what Animal Companions are, which ones there are, and what each of them do.
*** Also difficult for new players is the Shaman's hero power Totemic Call which says summon a random totem. What totems can it summon? How many different totems are there? There's also nothing that tells you you'll never summon a totem you already have on the board--or that as long as you have one of each, your hero power is disabled.
*** The Goblins vs Gnomes expansion added a new keyword that's described when you hover over cards: "Spare Parts - Spare Parts are 1-cost spells with minor effects." Which is great...except the game doesn't tell you what these Spare Parts actually are, and how many there are of them. The game doesn't provide any of way of figuring out what these are; they can't be seen in-game unless you're already in the middle of the match, so if you want to be prepared for these randomly summoned spells, you're gonna have to look it up elsewhere. Likewise, the Lackeys added in ''Rise of Shadows'' have a similar issue which is exacerbated by the fact that Blizzard added more of them throughout 2019.
*** The in-game text also forgot to mention that the Jade Golems from ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'' has an intrinsic ability: The size of the golem you summon directly depends on how many Jade Golems you have summoned throughout the game, so while the first golem you summon is weak, as the game drags on the golems become gigantic. The only thing that outright indicates this is a footnote.
*** Adapt is a new keyword in ''Journey to Un'Goro''. What is it? A choice from 3 different buffs from a pool of 10. The hover text explains it as "Choose one of 3 bonuses." Very helpful.
*** Quests are written out as "'''Quest:''' Do something. '''Reward:''' Some uncollectible card." The only way to see what the reward actually does is to play the quest and then hover over it while it's on the board.
*** Hero cards do the following: Change your hero into that card, activate a Battlecry, gain the listed Armor, and give you a new Hero Power. The problem is the doesn't ''mention'' that it comes with a new Hero Power. You ''can'' see what the Hero Power is by examining the card from your Collection, but at a glance it tells you nothing about it. That's fine, but the more complex Hero Powers have it even worse. Valeera the Hollow adds a Death's Shadow to your hand. ''Well what's a Death's Shadow?'' What are Zombeasts and how do you craft a custom one? The game also doesn't make it clear that Uther needs to control all 4 ''unique'' Horsemen for the effect to work.
*** The worst is probably Dr. Boom, Mad Genius from ''The Boomsday Project'', whose Hero Power in both the Collection and when hovered in your hand is unhelpfully described as "Activate this turn's Mech Suit power!". No mention of the five different powers or the fact that it randomly switches between them each turn.
*** The Lich King and Arfus give you something called a "Death Knight card". Are they talking about those new Death Knight hero cards that was prominently featured? Nope. It's a random selection of 8 cards that all do something completely different. They're called Death Knight cards because they're based on the skills from Death Knights in ''World of Warcraft'', so don't expect to give you Frost Lich Jaina on a Hunter or anything like that.
*** Rin, the First Disciple adds the First Seal to your hand. The First Seal creates the Second Seal. The Second creates the Third, and so on. The Sixth Seal adds Azari the Devourer to your hand, which destroys your opponent's deck. Nothing on Rin herself explains ''any'' of this.
*** The Invoke keyword is probably the worst instance in the whole game. Each of the five classes that use Invoke get a different effect when the card is played, based on which version of Galakrond they have available (it activates their Galakrond's hero power). This means every neutral Invoke minion has ''five'' different ways its effect can be interpreted. The ability is also written as "Use Galakrond's Power", which is an okay reminder but does nothing to help if you don't know what Invoke does. It also doesn't necessarily explain that you need to have a version of Galakrond in your deck for the effect to actually work, although thankfully all five were given out for free. Fortunately, [[AvertedTrope Blizzard took measures to make the Invoke keyword as intuitive as possible]]: Invoke cards' in-game tooltips say what they actually do, and putting an Invoke card in a deck without Galakrond will cause the game to remind you that they only work with Galakrond and offer to put Galakrond in for you.
** Some card interactions that change in specific, usually rare, circumstances go unexplained until you try it out. Wild Growth says it gives you an empty mana crystal, but if you use it at full mana you suddenly get an Excess Mana card that costs 0 mana and lets you draw a card. This, along with Astral Communion, are the only ways to get Excess Mana, so without online help the only way to know that happens is to just try it out of curiosity. Likewise, Sense Demons will generate 1/1 Imps if you have no Demons in your deck. They stopped doing this later on and instead just made unsuccessful spells fizzle, probably to avoid this trope.
** ''The Grand Tournament'' brings us a card that flat out lies about what it does in an attempt to be concise. The Mistcaller claims to give all minions in your hand or deck +1/+1, but in fact it if cards are brought out of your deck and put onto the battlefield directly, they will not get any bonus. To be accurate, the card would need to read "Give all minions in your hand +1/+1. For the rest of the game, all minions you draw gain +1/+1." Similarly, Knight of the Wild reads "Whenever you summon a Beast, reduce the Cost of this card by (1)." The card never specifies that you have to be ''holding'' it while summoning a beast for the discount to apply. To their credit, the dev team picked up on this and used more accurate abilities for Prince Keleseth and Arcane Giant, which have similar text.
** The ''Blackrock Mountain'' expansion brought a new legendary card: "Majordomo Executus", with: "Deathrattle: Replace your hero with Ragnaros, the Firelord." So, when he dies, you'll have Ragnaros as your new hero. Now, most players think of Ragnaros as a really powerful and game-changing legendary minion capable of winning games on his own; so of course, letting him replace your hero would be just as good, right? Nope. While becoming Ragnaros does give you his minion ability "Deal 8 damage to a random enemy" as your new hero, he also has a measly 8 health, meaning you're VERY easy to kill. And unlike Jaraxxus, you don't even get Sulfuras, Ragnaros' weapon, to back you up. Ragnaros also overrides any Armor you had left, and even an active Ice Block's immunity, so essentially, becoming Ragnaros is a VERY risky play that will most often than not cost you the game. And of course, the game doesn't tell you about any of this. Even the boss encounter when you face off against Majordomo and Ragnaros misleads you, because Ragnaros spawns with 8 Health and 8 Armor in Normal mode, probably making some players think that it's not as risky as it actually is.
** Zephrys the Great's effect is worded vaguely: "If your deck has no duplicates, wish for the perfect card". What this actually means is that you choose one of three cards from the Basic and Classic sets algorithmically calculated to offer the best value for your specific situation at the moment you play Zephrys. Oh, and the algorithm considers the size of your hand but doesn't know what specific cards you're holding (in other words, it only considers information your opponent knows). None of this is stated in-game, of course.
** Blizzard is generally good at averting this when it comes to nerfs, as launching the game after a nerf patch pulls up an unskippable text box that shows the original card(s) alongside its nerfed version with an outline to show what changed. That is except for Yogg-Saron and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, whose nerf screens showed a red outline around the text box... and no changes. This was because these cards were nerfed "under the hood" as it were: Yogg's effect will be interrupted if he was Silenced or left the battlefield, and Alexstrasza was made unable to create copies of herself. You needed to read up online to find out how these cards were changed.

[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes H-Z]]
* HarmlessFreezing: The Freeze ability prevents a character from attacking for one turn, after which they thaw out no worse for wear. Granted, there are ways to avert this with spells like [[LiterallyShatteredLives Shatter]], Ice Lance, and Ray of Frost that gain lethal bonuses against frozen targets, and the fact that some Freeze effects come with damage already.
* {{Hellfire}}: Purview of the Warlock class, from the aptly named [[TakingYouWithMe Hellfire]], Soulfire, Shadowflame, and Demonfire.
-->''Demonfire is like regular fire except for IT NEVER STOPS BURNING HELLLPPP''
* HerdHittingAttack: All classes have at least one card that can damage multiple targets at once, and several neutral cards can do the same. These types of cards are usually what dismantle minion-rush decks by taking out many cheap minions at once.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** The aptly-named Paladin secret Noble Sacrifice immediately summons a 2/1 Defender to TakingTheBullet when an enemy attacks. Since he only has one hitpoint, he will almost certainly die to the attack.
** The Mage secret Spellbender can do this by summoning a 1/3 Spellbender minion to become the target of an enemy spell, though this can also happen to defensive or buffing spells.
** At the end of Bru'kan's Book of Mercenaries chapter, [[spoiler:he pulls off a MutualDestruction to defeat Tamsin Roame once and for all so the other mercs can follow Onyxia to her lair.]]
* HeroicSecondWind:
** Late-game Paladin cards have a tendency to pull this off by healing their hero for a huge amount with likely some other bonuses on top, like '''Lay On Hands''' (8 mana for 8 health and 3 cards) and Libram of Hope (9 mana to heal for 8 and summon a 8/8 with Divine Shield and Taunt, which can have its cost reduced).
** Any time a control (or other late game) deck of any class succesfully weathers the onslaught of an aggro deck is an example of this trope, and the aggro deck is likely to lose unless he has gained a massive advantage. Such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6awQSqu9zh4 a mill druid down to 3 health succesfully taking down a warrior at full health and 19 armor.]] Needless to say, coming back from an extreme deficit isn't always a given, but it's better to persevere unless you know the game is completely unwinnable.
** Reno Jackson is a card introduced in the League of Explorers adventure that encourages this trope. By playing a deck with reduced consistency (since you can't have duplicates in your deck to trigger the effect), you can get a potentially enormous heal that can put you right back into the game against aggro decks, right when your own late-game minions begin to come into play.
* HighlySpecificCounterplay: In the "Unite against Mechazod!" tavern brawl event, Mechazod has an attack called "Kill Lorewalker Cho" which it will only use in response to someone playing the Lorewalker Cho card.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** It's very easy to turn an enemy's advantage into one of your own. For example, countering a Lightwell, which heals friendly characters, with a Lightwarden, which gains attack power every time a character is healed, and unless they can stop it they can only watch as you turn that small 1/2 Lightwarden into a monster. Or encountering a 2/4 Frothing Berserker, which gains one attack every time any minion takes damage, which can become a huge problem if you can't kill it within one or two turns before it begins snowballing.
** Priests have numerous spells that can crush an opponent with his own cards, including some that take possession of an enemy minion (temporarily or permanently) and a few that copies random cards from an opponent's deck...
** On the other hand, Priests also have a number of cards that can turn healing powers into damaging powers, which can screw themselves over if they end up needing to heal themselves really badly but can't because their power is permanantly Shadowform (deal 2/3 damage)...
** Most embodied by Faceless Manipulator. Goes into borderline {{Troll}} grade when done at the right time. Examples include using two of them (more likely in a control druid deck) to copy something like Ragnaros the Fire Lord. This includes even your own, making THREE of them spew 8 damage fireballs at the end of your turn.
** Cards like Mad Bomber or Wild Pyromancer that can damage a player or their own minions can do this.
** Cards such as the Northshire Cleric and the Cult Master allow the player who controls them to draw additional cards, but in the first place, you can only have up to ten cards in your hand, and if you're forced to draw additional cards they instead get discarded; in the second place, if the battle lasts long enough for that player to run out of cards, these minions instead accelerate the fatigue damage. Indeed, this is an effective way to defeat Noth in the Curse of Naxxramas expansion.
** Feugen and Stalagg are minions that spawn Thaddius (who has the second most powerful combat stats in the game) if one dies after another has already died that game. This does not depend on who played the first minion to die, so a player can use the other player's minion to help spawn their own Thaddius. The most extreme example is the heroic Thaddius boss fight. During this fight, the boss spawns a Feugen and Stalagg on their own, although these do not spawn anything when they die. Their deaths do count, however, if the player uses their own Feugen or Stalagg. The Thaddius fight thus allows a player to kill him with himself, and makes this process easier.
** Some minions have detrimental Deathrattle, which can utterly screw you over. Most notably the Deathlord from Naxxramas adventure. Sure you get a beefy [=2/8=] Taunt minion, but if you're unlucky, that can easily backfire with the enemy getting a lategame minion ''way'' earlier than they should.
** Since Blackrock Mountain, Rogue has gotten at least one card per update that grants the user random cards from the opponent's class. Furthermore, the Karazhan adventure gave Rogues a minion that lowers the cost of cards they hold from another class by 2 mana, making them easier to be played. While stealing cards is similar to what Priest can do, this adds a bit of strategy as you can get cards the opponent could use but may not have, versus random cards they do have but may not be useful with your deck.
** The first fight with Rafaam has him steal your deck to use against you, but there is nothing stopping you from building a bad deck to sabotage his efforts, making his Unstable Portal hero power the only threat in the fight.
* HopelessBossFight:
** The last tutorial mission is against Illidian Stormrage, who, as the game tells you, you can't win against ("[[LampshadeHanging This fight is totally not fair.]] [[TakeThatUs Blame the terrible game designers.]]"). Subverted in that the decks are stacked so that he ''looks'' intimidating early on, but a bit later the player can easily turn it around, demonstrating how even losing battles can be won.
** In the prologue of the ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' adventure, the Lich King destroys Jaina with his completely overpowered cards before reinforcements arrive, and before you draw anything that you have the mana to play except a lowly Magma Rager... [[spoiler:[[FissionMailed and then he raises Jaina from the dead]], which leads to the second half of the battle... Jaina vs. Tirion.]]
* HorseOfADifferentColor: Several varieties exist in the game, including the well known wolf rider. The Grand Tournament expansion added a lot more, with mounted units as a theme, including a gorilla riding a hippo and a murloc riding a frog.
* HostileShowTakeover: The Fire Fest-E.V.I.L. event starts with Ragnaros preparing to host another Fire Festival, before the League of E.V.I.L. crash into Blackrock Mountain and decide to take it over while they wait for Dr. Boom to fix their city/airship.
* HPToOne:
** The Paladin spell Equality changes all minions' HP to one. [[ShameIfSomethingHappened It would be a real shame if]] the enemy Uther just happened to have a Consecration, Avenging Wrath, or played a Wild Pryomancer to sweep your side of the field... They also have a variant that reduces attack instead of HP.
** The Hunter spell Hunter's Mark does this to one minion. Even if a Hunter has no minions to dispatch the marked minion, an easy follow-up is to use any of their damage-dealing spells or Rush minion to finish it off. The Hunter Legendary Veranus sets all enemy minion's health to 1.
** The Paladin legendary High Priest Thekal sets the player's health to 1, but grants them Armor equal to the amount of health lost, allowing them to heal themselves and gain more effective health.
* HumanoidAbomination: The ''Doppelgangster'' card is a 2/2 Dwarf gangster whose Battlecry summons 2 more 2/2. But considering he has glowing eyes and purple skin, which is never seen in other dwarves before (The Dark Iron Dwarves have soot-black skin and red eyes), and that his summoned minions are the [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} Faceless Ones]], it's clear that this 'Dwarf' is very likely a Faceless himself. Another one is the ''Darkshire Councilman''; if you look closer at his artwork, [[TheShadowKnows his shadow]] is eerily [[BuffySpeak tentacle-y]]. PlayedForLaughs with Convincing Infiltrator, which is obviously a Faceless One in a PaperThinDisguise trying to pretend he's a "fellow human".
* HurricaneOfPuns: The entire ''Maw and Disorder'' miniset is just an excuse to cram as many courtroom puns into a card set as they possibly could. That's not a hyperbole, either -- the dev team admitted that they started with the puns first and designed cards around them for the set. Some examples include the Nature spell ''Dew'' Process, the Warlock spell Habeas ''Corpses'' that resurrects a friendly minion, the Rogue Secret Perjury turns itself into a Secret from another class, the Paladin minion ''Class''-Action Lawyer that has an effect if you have no neutral cards, the neutral minion Tight-Lipped Witness (who literally has their MouthStitchedShut) that stops Secrets from being revealed, the Paladin spell Order in the Court which orders your deck from highest to lowest cost and draws a card; it just goes on.
* IAmYourOpponent: As Jaraxxus is summoned to the field, he makes clear that you will be facing him and not the puny warlock he just replaced.
-->'''Jaraxxus:''' ''You face Jaraxxus'', '''''Eredar Lord of the Burning Legion!'''''
* IronicEcho: In ''Whispers Of The Old Gods'', corrupted versions of earlier cards were released. These cards had altered versions of their original quotes to show the effects of their corruption:
-->'''Kobold Geomancer:''' You no take candle!\\
'''Evolved Kobold:''' I take your candle.
* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: When Secrets are in play, the mindgames get ramped up when players try to avoid triggering them or minimize advantage swings when they go off. In general there's a pool of the most commonly used Secrets, but beware of [[DidntSeeThatComing not expecting THAT Secret]], especially in Arena.
* AnIcePerson: Mages can use a number of ice-based spells that usually involve freezing opponents (preventing them from attacking for a turn). Mage decks built around freeze effects are extremely efficient at stalling out matches as they hit enemy face with spells. ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' and ''Fractured in Alterac Valley'' gave Shamans cards that can Freeze minions.
* IMeantToDoThat: Or, as they say, "there is no missed lethal, only hilarious BM". It's entirely possible for a player to somehow miss dealing lethal damage to the enemy hero, be it due to miscalculation, misclicks, or what have you, and still manage to win the game later on.
* IShallTauntYou: The game includes an emote system, which lets you threaten or taunt an opponent. For instance, many players delight in giving the opponent a "Well played" or "Wow" after they mess up or get screwed by RNG.
** The Evil Heckler card throws some mean insults at your opponent, reminiscent of a certain movie about [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail a certain group of knights looking for a certain piece of silverware]].
** Evil Heckler's mantle was later taken up by Vulgar Homunculus from ''Kobolds and Catacombs'', which also has a number of randomly selected voice lines used when attacking or being played, all of which are juvenile insults. Exaggerated with Hecklebot from ''Rise of Shadows'', which has a grand total of '''nine''' different responses for being played and nine more for attacking, all of which are insults directed at the opponent. Appropriately enough, Evil Heckler, Vulgar Homunculus, and Hecklebot all have the Taunt keyword.
* InstantWinCondition:
** The Paladin hero card from ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'', Uther of the Ebon Blade, changes the Hero Power to summon the Four Horsemen. When all 4 of these 2/2s are on the board at the same time, they strike the enemy hero at once and obliterate them. Not even Ice Block can save them.
** ''The Boomsday Project'' introduces Mecha'Thun, a 10-mana neutral minion whose deathrattle destroys the enemy hero... provided its player has '''absolutely nothing left''' on board, in hand, and in deck (barring active secrets, weapons, and permanents).
** Can be inverted into an [[KeystoneArmy instant fail condition for several decks.]] With certain decks, if you make them discard or overdraw the right card, their entire strategy becomes useless.
* InsufferableGenius: The Dalaran aspirant, in all of his quotes:
-->''[when played]'' Knowledge is power, and I know a lot.\\
''[attack quote]'' So, here's where you're wrong!
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: While many pro players make accurate predictions about which cards in an upcoming pack are worthless/game-changing, they are occasionally dead wrong, most notably with the Mysterious Challenger, which was dismissed until it became the core of the GameBreaker Secret Paladin.
* JackOfAllStats:
** Mage has quite a lot of utility, having a nice spread of spell cards.
** Paladins in general have some of everything: healing, buffing, weapons, decent spells, in addition to never being short on minions. However, they usually aren't the best at any particular one of those, though they do have the most cards with the Divine Shield property.
** In the metagame, a midrange deck is a mixture between an aggro deck (early-game) and a control deck (late-game). These usually do not have as much early game damage as an aggro deck nor the same stranglehold of the board as control decks, but they can do both simultaneously.
* JokeCharacter: A couple cards seem to exist solely for comedic value. One example is the Angry Chicken, a 1-cost creature with one of the most powerful Enrage effects in the game (+5 attack, giving it a potential 6 attack for 1 mana). The problem? It only has one health, meaning it requires some form of health buff to activate its effect without dying. Said health buff is nearly always better spent on a more useful minion such as an [[BoringButPractical Ogre or Yeti]]. That said, beating your opponent down with a [[KillerRabbit chicken]] might be [[RuleOfFunny amusing enough for some players to do it anyway]].
* KeystoneArmy: Some decks are highly reliant on a single card as keystone of their strategy (for example, ''Archmage Antonidas'', ''Shudderwock'', ''Sire Denathrius'', some of the Death Knight Hero cards, etc. If you can somehow make them lose the card through discard or overdraw effects, there's a good chance that your opponent will concede there and then.
* KingOfBeasts: It's the name of a card, which is logically a lion. Stat-wise (King Krush and Giant Sand Worm are tied for the biggest) and popularity-wise (the most common here is Savannah Highmane, which is also a lion), it's not the best by far among Beast cards, though it gets it King status by becoming stronger if you have more Beasts already in play.
* KneelBeforeZod: Both Yogg-Saron and Deathwing, Dragonlord command this in their summon quotes:
-->'''Yogg-Saron:''' Bow down before the God of Death!\\
'''Deathwing:''' The dragons shall kneel before me!
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Player can concede (traditionally accompanied by a "Well Played" emote) when they know they can't win, in order to save their opponent the trouble of finishing them. This is usually realized by counting up the damage on both sides and realizing that their opponent can finish them off in the next turn before they can do the same. Some, however, insist on not quitting the game until the enemy player actually kills them, perhaps hoping that the enemy either doesn't realize that they a guaranteed victory or they make a mistake in the process, giving them just the last one or two turns that they need.
* KrakenAndLeviathan: The Colossal minions introduced in ''Voyage to the Sunken City'' are mostly made of unfathomably huge {{Sea Monster}}s of various types. They represent this by coming into play alongside a set of CognizantLimbs that take up extra board spaces, since their bodies are too big for one card. The only ones that don't fit this trope are Gaia and (funnily) The Leviathan, which are HumongousMecha, and Neptulon, who is a humanoid elemental and more of a generic {{Kaiju}}.
* LargeHam: The Stormwind Champion and numerous other cards ham up their quotes upon being summoned and Jaraxxus is only not-hammy when he apologizes. Even the ''tokens'' of such minions are Large Hams, firmly dropping onto the table at high-speed.
-->'''Stormwind Champion:''' ''BEHOLD! the might of '''STOOOOOOOOOORMWIND!'''''\\
'''Stormpike Commando:''' ''I've got a '''''HUUUGE''''' GUN!''\\
'''Wild Pyromancer:''' ''Do you LIKE to play with FIYAAAAH?!''\\
'''[[BlowYouAway Al'Akir, The Windlord]]:''' ''WINDS! '''OBEY MY COMMAND!!'''''\\
'''[[BigRedDevil Jaraxxus]]:''' '''''OBLIVION!'''''\\
'''Deathwing:''' '''I AM''' '''''POWER INCAARNNATEEEEE!!!'''''\\
'''Grim Patron:''' ''EVERYONE, '''GET IN HERE!'''[[note]][[MesACrowd EVERYONE-EV-EV-EVERYONE-EVERYONE, GET IN HERE-IN HERE-IN HERE!, and so on and so forth...]][[/note]]''\\
'''Emperor Thaurissan:''' ''[[ShoutOut BY THE POWER OF RAGNAROS,]] [[Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse I HAVE THE POWER!]]''\\
'''Coldwraith:''' ''Winter is here... AND IT'S '''CAAAWLD!'''''\\
'''Chillblade Champion:''' ''I'll '''CUT''' them DOWN TO SIZE!''
** In the Naxxramas expansion, Kel'Thuzad definitely qualifies for this.
--->Maexxna is a GIANT SPIDER! MUAHAHAHA\\
Just being nearby Loatheb causes your flesh to rot. So I recommend a melee class.\\
You keep KILLING MY MINIONS. Stop it! Stop it right this minute!\\
Of course I played well. I'm Kel'Thu-freaking-zad!\\
Victory tastes so sweet... Like a milkshake. No, maybe more like a bar of chocolate.\\
My power is overwhelming! And yet, I did not die horribly at the end of the turn.
** The characters themselves are pretty large hams when you consider the in-universe ExcusePlot that they're playing a card game at an inn. Phrases like "I will crush you!" somehow don't have the same impact when you're not actually in a combat situation.
** Jaraxxus and the Ragnaros hero are such large hams that even their emotes and the names of their hero powers ("INFERNO!" and "DIE, INSECT!" respectively) are written in ALL CAPS.
* LastChanceHitPoint:
** The Paladin secret Redemption can almost simulate this by resurrecting a fallen minion with 1 HP left. The game still sees it as a death and new summon, so the Deathrattle activates, Battlecry is skipped, and so on.
** Mages have Ice Block which stops any attack or spell that does lethal damage and makes her immune for the rest of the turn. Players expecting this secret often divide their damage such that their opponent's health is as low as possible before triggering the secret, fulfilling the trope to the letter.
* LeeroyJenkins:
** An actual card, even being voiced by [[TropeNamer the man himself]]. 5 mana, 6/2, has Charge (can attack immediately), and summons two 1/1 whelps for the opponent (enough to kill him on the next turn). At least he has angry chicken.
** His Battlegrounds counterpart, Leeroy the Reckless, has a unique MutualKill mechanic: his Deathrattle kills the minion that delivered the killing blow to him, even if said minion has tons of HP, Divine Shield or kills him by indirect means such as Cleave.
** More generally, any card like the true LeeroyJenkins card (low cost, high attack, low life, comes with Charge) is meant as a suicidal fast-hitting attacker that will usually die quickly.
** Kobold Barbarian from ''Kobolds and Catacombs'' fits the trope to a T; instead of you ordering it to attack something, this minion automatically attacks a random enemy at the start of your turn. Similarly, there's Swamp King Dred, which automatically attacks any minion the opponent plays, even if that minion is [[OneHitKill Poisonous]] or bigger and nastier than Dred himself (which is comparatively rare as Dred is significantly overstatted at 9/9 for 7 mana).
* LethalHarmlessPowers: Divine Shield grants invulnerability to one attack, which sounds like a purely defensive spell. Then keep in mind that all minions counterattack, so using it offensively effectively gives you a free kill for one mana (which can be rather cost efficient).
* LethalJokeCharacter: Joke cards can become lethal under the right circumstances.
** Any Murloc rush deck, which depends on spamming Murlocs (the resident ButtMonkey and JokeCharacter) in large numbers early on then buffing all of them in order to steamroll the opponent before any high price-tag cards come into play. Surprisingly effective, if only because no one usually sees it coming - and even when they do, a properly-played Murloc deck is ''terrifyingly'' effective.
** The [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Angry_Chicken Angry Chicken]] seems to have to put into the game specifically for players that want a challenging card to work with. It's the worst card in the game unless you can buff its health and ''then'' damage it, whereupon it's suddenly ''extremely'' powerful relative to its cost. [[http://youtu.be/TQzmEdVFZwY?t=6m22s Fear the Chicken synergy!]] The Angry Chicken also got a shot in the arm with the addition of Deathstalker Rexxar, which can slap its Enrage effect onto a much bigger body. An Oasis Snapjaw or Stegodon that gains +5 attack upon taking damage is nothing to sneeze at.
** Sacrificial Pact for Warlocks is generally regarded as mediocre and/or counterproductive since it kills a Demon for +5 health, so unless facing another Warlock, it just reverses summoning a Demon . However, should the enemy Warlock sacrifice themselves to summon Lord Jaraxxus, he technically counts as a Demon, so using Sacrificial Pact will [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu end the game on the spot.]]
** Anything with 0 attack and high health (like the Lightwell) can be this in the hands of a Priest, using Divine Spirit to double that already high health and then Inner Fire to raise their attack to the same level. With just 5 mana, that 0/5 Lightwell would suddenly be a 20/20 Behemoth.
** Fel Reaver from the [=GvG=] set gets a bad rap because he makes you discard 3 cards from the top of your deck every time your opponent plays a card. However, as explained [[http://bmkgaming.com/understanding-fel-reaver-hearthstone-theory/ here,]] discarding a good card does not guarantee you will draw it in the first place due to the random draw mechanic, and if you manage to win the game before you run out of cards, the Fel Reaver might as well have no drawback at all. That said, his power shines more in Arena where the rest of your deck is more disjointed and you can afford to lose the cards; in constructed, a player would ''want'' to have and use the cards since they're central to the deck's strategy.
** Yogg-Saron, Hope's End from ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' is the current world record holder for this. With an effect as silly as his (casting random spells with random targets for every spell his owner casted that game), it was quite the shock that he turned out to be the best board clear in the game, as he was statistically likely to draw his owner plenty of cards while wiping out all enemy minions, with other effects like summoning more minions or potentially just giving you the ability to kill the enemy right there. In fact, his lethalness outshined the joke part so bad, he had to be ''nerfed''.
** The basic card Stonetusk Boar is a 1 mana 1/1 with Charge, and it doesn't take long to come to the realization that this card is pretty bad in of itself, even with Beast synergies. However, there are a few cases cases where it actually shines -- Quest Rogue, whose quest results in the Boar becoming a much more fearsome '''4/4''', and Death Stalker Rexxar's Hero Power, where he can graft Stonetusk Boar's Charge effect onto anything bigger and make it ''much'' more fearsome without dramatically inflating the base card's cost.
*** ''The Witchwood'' has the cards Dire Frenzy, which grants a +3/+3 buff to a beast and then shuffles 3 copies of that minion with the buff into your deck, and Emeriss, whose Battlecry doubles the stats of all minions in your hand. Stonetusk Boar happens to be one of the best minions to combo with these cards; its Charge ability lets you make use of the boosted stats immediately, and its 1-mana cost makes the copies easily searchable with cards like Witchwood Piper and Tol'vir Warden while letting you flood the board with them easily. Needless to say, Stonetusk Boar becomes a lot less of a joke when buffed to 8/8 and played three at a time.
*** ''The Boomsday Project'' gives way to "Topsy-Turvy Priest", where Stonetusk Boar is a '''win condition''' for a combo. The deck involves using Test Subject to copy Divine Spirits to pile on the Boar, followed with Topsy Turvy to switch that massive health into massive attack for a OneHitKill via massive damage off the charging Boar. Furthermore, the combo also requires you to copy Vivid Nightmare with Test Subject, letting you duplicate the Boar as many times as you need to bust through any number of Taunts [[SomeDexterityRequired assuming you can play your cards quickly enough without messing up your combo]].
** ''Dirty Rat'' is a 2 mana 2/6 Taunt whose Battlecry plays a minion from your opponent's hand. Playing him on Turn 2 tends to go wrong, such as giving the enemy Druid an 8/8 ''Ancient Protector''. However, it is one of the first cards that directly affects your opponent's hand, and playing it mid-late game when you have Removal potentially disrupts their combo by dragging their keystone minion out to be killed. Or denying a powerful Battlecry like Reno Jackson. Or blowing up their board by dragging out a Doomsayer.
** ''Weasel Tunneler'' is a 1 Mana 1/1 with a peculiar Deathrattle of shuffling himself to the enemy's deck. Widely considered a crappy gimmick card, Savjz invented the 'Weasel Priest' deck, which utilizes multiple resurrections, Deathrattle activators and minion copying to ''flood'' his opponent's deck with Weasels, thus 'diluting' their card draw, and making them less likely to draw their required cards in time.
--->'''Savjz:''' Spend 2 Mana, take 2 damage and draw a [[JokeCharacter Weasel]]. You can't summon your [[LightningBruiser Doomguard]] when all you get are Weasels.
** Bolf Ramshield from ''The Grand Tournament'' has an ability that basically makes him a taunt minion, except worse: whenever your hero takes damage, Bolf takes it instead. The opponent's minion, however, takes no damage, so Bolf can literally be killed without him affecting your opponent's board in any way. If you somehow manage to obtain both [[ResetButton Tree of Life]] and Auchenai Soulpriest or Embrace the Shadow, the result is usually [[TakingYouWithMe all minions and both heroes dying, resulting in a draw]], but if you have Bolf on the field, he'll soak up the damage and allow you to live to win the match. [[AwesomeButImpractical Good luck actually having all the necessary cards on hand, though.]]
*** With ''Maw and Disorder'', Bolf has become a powerful servant for the Jailer. The Jailer makes all your minions Immune for the rest of the game, and with this, Bolf takes no damage from all the damage he redirected from your hero, making your hero NighInvulnerable unless the opponent can remove him using non-targeted destruction effects.
** Despite his incredibly high 4/4 stats for a 2-mana minion, Millhouse Manastorm almost never sees play in regular game modes as his Battlecry gives the opponent free spells on their next turn, which can easily lead to them building an insurmountable advantage or straight-up killing you. Tavern Brawls are a different story: because many Brawls with randomized decks tend to be relatively light on spells, with damage and removal in particular being almost nonexistent, a turn 2 Millhouse gives you an early powerhouse that can be very difficult to punish. He's also one of the best 2-drops to get from random effects like Piloted Shredder or Vex Crow, as this gives you a huge pile of stats without the hindering Battlecry.
** The Silence Priest deck in its entirety. Individually, the key cards are laughably weak: Humongous Razorleaf is an overstatted minion that can't attack and is thus useless on its own, and Purify silences your own minion to draw a card, making it hopelessly outclassed by the Basic card Power Word: Shield. But put them together, and you can easily get a massive beater very early on that also synergizes well with the Priest's buff spells. In fact, the Razorleaf's uselessness works in the deck's favor: [[MortonsFork if the opponent chooses to destroy it, they waste a disproportionate amount of resources on a useless minion, but if they leave it up it'll smash their face in]].
* LighterAndSofter:
** Compared to the rest of the ''Warcraft'' franchise, it's just a bunch of people (both Alliance and Horde) setting their differences aside to enjoy drinks and card games in a tavern. 90% of the cards' FlavorText even puts a humorous spin on the more serious parts of the Warcraft canon when it comes to notable characters/factions.
** The Curse of Naxxramas adventure mode is much lighter in tone compared to the original raid, with Kel'Thuzad sounding more like a comically bumbling necromancer who keeps assuring you that the ''next'' minion of his will surely destroy you.
** Initially averted by ''Blackrock Mountain'', where its two main villains were much more sinister and serious, even if their minions were fairly goofy. Played straight starting with the third wing, where Nefarian winds up divulging in a [[VillainousBreakdown hilarious meltdown]] that only escalates from there.
** The main artwork of every character is much more cartoony, especially on Tavern Brawls.
** ''One Night in Karazhan'' is an intentional BreatherEpisode following the DarkerAndEdgier (by Hearthstone standards, anyway) ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', and basically an AffectionateParody of the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' raid it is based on.
* LightningBruiser:
** Dunemaul Shaman is a 5/4 minion for 4 mana plus Overload and a has a 50% chance to attack the wrong target. Discounting the Overload and Clumsy aspects, he's reasonably tough and strong for his cost, but most dangerously, also comes with Windfury. You do ''not'' want to let him wail on your face, as he can wipe off 33% of your health every turn.
** King Krush is a 9-mana 8/8 with Charge, who can take a colossal chunk of health off the opponent or can bust through a tough minion, while having enough health to require several minion trades before it goes down.
** In general, minions with similar attack/health value and possessing ''Charge'', ''Rush'', and/or ''Windfury'' is this.
* LiterallyShatteredLives: Alluded to with the 'Ice Lance' card, which freezes a character, or deals four damage if said character is already frozen. Played straight with the ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' card Shatter (destroys a Frozen minion) and ''The Witchwood'' card Snap Freeze (basically Shatter crossed with Ice Lance; destroys the target if it's frozen, freezes it otherwise).
* LovecraftLite: The ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' expansion. In particular, it introduces a corrupted version of Stormwind as its new battlefield, which parodies many LovecraftianTropes (a church's window becomes a huge eye that sheds a tear if you click on it a few times).
* LuckBasedMission:
** No doubt any player can attest to praying to draw that one card that can save them from a troublesome situation or help them win the game.
** The Shaman's Hero Power summons a random totem out of a possible four. This ability is programmed to not summon duplicates, so the outcome gets less random as you gather each basic totem.
** Several of the Shaman's cards involve more random effects than the other classes. This includes Lightning Storm doing 2 to 3 damage to each enemy minion, Crackle that deals anywhere between 3 and 6 damage, and Evolve and Devolve which transform minions into random ones costing 1 mana more or less.
** The Hunter's Animal Companion spell works essentially the same way, with 3 possible beasts summoned by it.
** Also, many card effects that target random minions/characters. On one hand, their randomness allows them to go through protection effects which prevent you from targeting, say, a Stealthed minion with a kill spell. On the other hand, try killing that ''one'' stealthed minion with, say, Multi-Shot, when your opponent has more than two minions out in the field.
** The Thoughtsteal card, which lets Priests copy two random undrawn cards from their opponent's deck, Mind Vision, which lets Priests copy a random card in an opponent's hand, and Mindgames, which lets you randomly summon a minion form your opponents deck to the battlefield.. You can use stolen cards no matter what, but it's up to the RandomNumberGod whether you draw a game-winner and (hilariously) kill someone with their own trump card... or one that's entirely useless to you (getting a Rogue's Deadly Poison is no good without a weapon to use it on).
** Perhaps best typified by the Warrior's '''Brawl'''. Destroy all minions (including yours) but one, chosen at random. Often played on a board containing only enemy minions, allowing for up to a 6-for-1 card trade and possibly destroying extremely powerful minions.
** The opponents you get in general and their decks. Match-making does its best to match you with opponents of equal skill (especially during peak playing hours), but whether any opponent is bringing his trump deck (that may smash yours to pieces) or his cruddy experimental deck that he's tried once is all a matter of luck.
** Arena mode. You get 90 random cards generated and have to make a deck by choosing 30 of them (1 per set of 3 presented to you). Other than having to be neutral or available to your hero, these can be ''any'' 90 cards, which makes for some... interesting possibilities. Will you get just the right cards for the strategy you were planning on or will your deck end up a train-wreck? Will you get the chance to pick from some epic or legendary cards or will you be stuck with bog-standard ones? Part of the fun of playing Arena is playing with decks that would be impossible or ''insane'' to run in Constructed mode, and then beat opponents with those decks anyway.
** The Hunter class challenge from Curse of Naxxramas. The player's deck consists of nothing but 30 '''Webspinner''' minions, which upon death add a random beast to the player's hand. Made significantly less frustrating by the fact that the boss the deck faces is Loatheb, who is susceptible to the rushdown decks beasts are meant to specialise in.
** A similar thing happens in the Mage class challenge in Blackrock Mountain. Instead, it's 30 '''Unstable Portal''' spells, which add a random minion to your hand that costs 3 less. Like the Hunter challenge, you fight a boss who is easily susceptible to this deck, it being the Dark Iron Arena (which has 30 legendary cards, which while powerful, are very expensive, meaning many cheaper, better minions can beat him). Also, the boss tends to play Millhouse Manastorm in the first couple of turns (since his mana cost makes him one of the only things that ''can'' be cast early on), allowing you to immediately convert ALL of your portals into creatures.
*** That said, the Dark Iron Arena does have one thing going for it that can make it a lot tougher; one of the other two mana minions in the deck, Lore Walker Cho. Though he has no attacks, Cho's ability means that any spells you cast are given to the boss, which ''really'' stings if he plays Millhouse Manastorm the turn after he plays Cho, if not the same turn, and you have no way of removing him save by playing Unstable Portal and hoping for a strong charge minion.
** Prone to happen in Tavern Brawls. One such Brawl gives the players a deck filled with random minions that cast a random spell of their matching cost when summoned (targets chosen randomly). Another does the reverse, with a deck full of random spells that summon random minions when cast. Yet another has random minions whose costs change randomly each turn, and another involves a deck full of Shifter Zerus that transforms into random minions at the start of each turn. The list goes on.
** To get the most bang for the buck out of Elise Starseeker, you have to randomly draw a card she shuffles into the deck, then randomly draw another card shuffled into the deck by ''that'' card, and then hope that the random legendary minions you get won't ruin your synergy and leave you with a worse deck. Outside of that unlikely scenario she's just a Sen'jin Shieldmasta without taunt, but it makes it all the more awesome when you do get to play the full potential of the effect.
** The so-called 'Randuin Wrynn' deck consists ''entirely'' out of cards with random elements to them. For extra fun, some of his cards copy random cards from the OPPONENT'S hand or deck.
** The Discover mechanic will give you three random cards or effects within certain conditions (such as the player's class), letting you pick one. You could get something game-breakingly powerful, or three options that are completely mundane.
** The Dungeon Run and Monster Hunt modes, being inspired by {{Roguelike}}s, require a lot of luck to win, both with regard to which card choices you get and which bosses you face.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Many minions brandishing shields have defensive gimmicks. Garrosh can also Shield Block to generate a lot of armor points, and draw a card.
* MadScientist: [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Mad_Scientist Has its own card]], though a few other characters like Dr. Boom and Professor Putricide also count. According to the [[https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21953428 Boomsday]] [[https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21953435/ Project]] [[https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21984237/ Lab Logs]], ''every head scientist'' at the Boomsday Labs is one.
* MagicEater: The ''Blood Knight'' is a standard [=3/3=] minion for 3 mana. Upon play however, he removes '''all''' ''[[SingleUseShield Divine Shield]]'' effects and gaining [=3/3=] for each removed. There are also the Mana Wyrms and various Troggs, which gain attack whenever a spell is cast.
* MagikarpPower: Many cards get buffed every time a certain action is performed by its player (or both players), like +1/+1 for Questing Adventurer every time a card is played or +1 attack for Mana Wyrm every time a spell is cast (which is very often for mages). It's important to kill these cards ''fast'' before their stats/bonuses snowball out of control. These sorts of cards are often called "soft taunts"- nothing is actually making you focus them, but only a fool would let them live for a moment longer than possible.
** As far as decks go, some decks focus heavily on late game and don't try to dominate the board early on and just try to control the board and turtle (often called "control" decks). The risk of running such a strategy is that if one cannot hold off the enemy onslaught early on and they gain a significant advantage, the game might be lost before any heavy-hitters get a chance to be effective.
** Say a Priest drops a 1/5 or some such creature with no taunt. Doesn't seem like it's worth taking out. Then on the next turn: double health (2 mana), double health (2 mana), attack = health (1 mana). [[OhCrap Now it's a 20/20]]. This trope is why savvy players will kill each and every weak minion they can if their opponent might buff them. A 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit is laughable in the late game, but not if Uther buffs it with Blessing of Kings then Blessed Champion to make it a 10/5.
** Special mention goes to Gruul, a legendary minion that starts 7/7 for 8 mana BUT gains +1/+1 at the end of every turn. Yes, both your and your opponent's turns. Either silence/eliminate him immediately or be prepared to face a behemoth.
** Bolvar Fordragon, a Paladin legendary minion with 1/7 stats for 5 mana. While he's in the player's hand, he gains +1 attack every time a friendly minion dies. When played normally, he's crap, but after a half dozen or so turns of holding him the opponent suddenly has a 9/7 to deal with.
** C'Thun has a unique spin on this in that the buffing can happen ''while he's in your deck''. In fact, it's the entire purpose of his deck, using his cultists to power him up to the point that playing him wins you the game on the spot.
** The Jade Golems from Gadgetzan has an unwritten ability where its size depends on how many Jade Golems you have summoned throughout the game. The first Jade Golem you summon will be a measly 1/1, but once you've summoned enough, they'll start to show up with double-digit Attack and HP.
** Pogo-Hopper is a humble 1-mana 1/1 that gets stronger for each other Pogo-Hopper you've played in the game. Between Rogue's many bounce cards and even Lab Recruiter to shuffle in more copies of it, it's not unusual to see a Pogo-Hopper exceed 15/15.
** Ironically, Murlocs in Battlegrounds are at their peak in the late game. They have a middling early game and a bad mid-game, but late game their board-wide Battlecry buffs give the entire warband gigantic stats and can one-shot enemies with Poisonous. Dragons are a close second, where their scaling minions takes time to build up, but over time the stats add up and their board-wide Divine Shield lets them go two-for-one on other minions.
*** Some Battlegrounds heroes fall under this as well. For example, George the Fallen's Hero Power gives a minion Divine Shield for a whopping 2 Gold, but this heavy investment pays off very well in the late game. Mr. Bigglesworth is the most extreme version of this, where he basically has no Hero Power until someone else gets eliminated, where he can then Discover one of their minions, ''with'' any buffed stats and Golden status.
* MamaBear: Some sticky minions have Deathrattle that involves calling out their parent. Did you just kill that ''[[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Raptor_Hatchling Raptor Hatchling]]'' or ''[[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Direhorn_Hatchling Direhorn Hatchling]]''? Wait 'til their [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Raptor_Patriarch bigger]], [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Direhorn_Matriarch nastier]] parent appears.
** There's also [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Mama Bear]] in Battlegrounds, which gives any summoned beasts a huge stat boost.
* ManipulatingTheOpponentsDeck: There are several cards designed to mess with the opponent's hand and deck, or make them reluctant to draw more cards:
** Cards such as Coldlight Oracle and Naturalize make the opponent draw cards. This can be utilized as part of a 'mill' strategy to force the opponent to discard cards because they've hit the hand size limit, and make them take fatigue damage by having them draw from an empty deck.
** The Rogue spell Beneath the Grounds shuffles three Nerubian Ambushes into the opponent's deck. When drawn, they each summon a 4/4 Nerubian for the player that cast the spell. This is a bit of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness - there have been many similar Rogue cards released since, but with the caveat that they shuffle beneficial cards into ''their own'' deck.
** Iron Juggernaut, Clockwork Goblin, Seaforium Bomber, and Wrenchcalibur shuffle bombs into the opponent's deck that explode and do damage when drawn. Similarly, Hakkar the Soulflayer shuffles a Corrupted Blood into both player's decks - when drawn, it does 3 damage to the player and shuffles another two Corrupted Bloods into their deck.
** Weasel Tunneler and Bad Luck Albatross add weak 1/1 minions to the opponent's deck, leading to wasted draws.
** Excavated Evil deals 3 damage to all minions and shuffles itself into the opponent's deck. Not only does this slow down aggro players, it also puts a completely dead draw into their deck. Likewise, another Priest spell, Psychic Scream, shuffles all minions on the board into the opponent's deck, which can include useless tokens.
** Prior to her rework, Mindrender Illucia forced you and the opponent to swap hands and decks for one turn, giving you a chance to take waste or even make use of key cards from their deck. Thanks to some [[NotTheIntendedUse unforeseen usage]],[[note]]Namely, it being played in aggressive decks so they could put lethal on the board then give their opponent an empty hand and worthless top deck[[/note]] the card was heavily {{nerf}}ed in patch 21.3 to just give the user a ''copy'' of the opponent's hand rather than actually swapping them.
** Glide causes you to shuffle your hand into your deck and draw four new cards. If you can cast it from either of the outermost positions in the hand, it forces your opponent to do the same. Potentially this lets you go +4 while they go as much as -6.
** Flik Skyshiv destroys a targeted minion and all cards with the same name as it, regardless of whether they're in play, in players' hands, or in their decks.
** Whirlpool destroys all minions on the board and all copies of it the same way Flik does.
** Skulking Geist destroys all 1-mana spells in both player's hands and decks.
** King Togwaggle swaps you and your opponent's decks around, but gives the opponent a 5-mana card that switches the decks back. If you can find a way to burn that card (read: playing him while the opponent has a full hand) or get a copy of that card yourself, you can make the switch permanent.
** Warlocks have a number of cards that can destroy cards in their opponents deck, including Gnomeferatu (destroy the top card), Altar of Fire (destroy three cards from both decks), Tickatus (remove five cards from the opponent's deck if corrupted), Void Contract (destroy half the cards in both decks), and Azari the Devourer (destroy all remaining cards in the opponent's deck).
** The Darkness summons a dormant 20/20 minion, then shuffles three candles into the opponent's deck. If all three are drawn, The Darkness awakens.
* MechanicallyUnusualClass:
** The Demon Hunter, being the first ever new class, is one of these. They have a 1 mana Hero Power instead of the normal 2 mana.
** The Death Knight class requires selecting three Runes with any deck they build, using any number of Blood, Frost, and Unholy Runes. Many Death Knight cards require you to have chosen a specific Rune in order to add them to your deck, with more powerful cards requiring two or three of the same Rune.
** The standard win condition is to bring your enemy Hero's HP to 0 by hitting their face with minions, spells and maybe weapons. However, there are certain archetypes that aim to win the game in a different manner:
*** Mill Decks also aim to deplete the enemy health, but through [[VictoryByEndurance Fatigue]] rather than direct damages.
*** "[[Franchise/YuGiOh Exodia]]" decks rely on certain card combinations that when unleashed, are supposed to finish off the enemy in one turn. Exodia Paladin in particular rely on summoning [[HorsemenOftheApocalypse four token minions]] who will then kill the enemy Hero regardless of health or even Immunity, something Exodia Mage can't do.
*** ''Mecha'thun'' from Boomsday has a Deathrattle which will kill the enemy hero if you have ''no'' cards left in hand, deck and on board. The most mechanically unusual card printed so far, since its activation condition is something considered to be very bad in normal play.
** Millhouse Manastorm in Battlegrounds has a very unusual Hero Power: he pays 2 Gold to buy a minions instead of 3, but rerolls cost twice as much and tavern tiers cost 1 extra. He has a lot of buying power on a good roll and can use token minions to "bank" Gold, but having a much more costly Reroll means he has to buy aggressively in order to not fall behind.
* MediumAwareness:
** Some cards seem to actually be aware that they are cards in a game, at least according to their card descriptions.
--->'''Abusive Sergeant:''' PUT ME IN YOUR DECK, MAGGOT!
** Kel'Thuzad also blurts out a meta comment if his underling Maexxna plays Sea Giant.
--->'''Kel'Thuzad:''' Sea Giant? Maexxna, that is NOT on my approved card list!
** C'Thun has a couple meta comments if you buff him enough times.
--->'''C'Thun:''' Your deck betrays you.
** The Lich King is pretty much made of this, from threatening to disenchant the player for Arcane Dust to complaining about someone nerfing his weapon. Even his card description gets in on the fun.
--->All that I am: anger, cruelty, vengeance, 8 attack - I bestow upon you, my chosen knight.
* {{Metagame}}: Mostly manifests in popular opinion of which deck(s) are strongest, which changes fairly regularly. Averted for the most part, since opponents are chosen randomly, it's a matter of luck whether one deck's central strategy counters the others', so even a "win against everything" deck is likely to run into a counter. Most of the meta-strategy comes from knowing the possible cards a particular hero has at their disposal then playing accordingly.
* MonsterClown: Carnival Clown. Although in his defense, he is trying to be a NonIronicClown. He only becomes monstrous if you can Corrupt him.
* MoodWhiplash:
** Because the animation and voice over of each minions is independent of each other, you and your opponent can end up playing several minions with voice over work clashing widely in tone and feel with each other. For example:
--->'''Shrinkmeister:''' Let us see if this works. (Hilarious)\\
'''Cabal Shadow Priest:''' Let me change your mind (Creepy and unsettling)\\
'''Sylvanas Winrunner:''' Let none survive (Proud and combative)
** In a specific example, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDJgW3A_sw the cinematic trailer]] for Curse of Naxxaramas was gritty and mysterious until the last 5 seconds featuring the Innkeeper.
** Blackrock Mountain has a threefor. At first it tries to be intimidating, but Ragnaros' LargeHam and Nefarian's DeadpanSnarker back and forth keeps it amusing. Then you start Blackwing Lair and learn that Vaelastrasz's fate is basically the same, [[AndIMustScream forced to fight you by Nefarian's brainwashing while still being completely mentally aware of what he's doing]], and nothing is done to remove the emotional pain of the fight if you know his backstory. And then after that heading to Chromaggus, the game's mood gets lighter again, though Nefarian continues to grow more angry and sinister than Ragnaros at his worst.
* MookCommander: Certain minions such as ''Stormwind Champion'' and ''Southsea Captain'' provide aura-type buff to other minions on the field. This can result in interesting interactions, such as Silencing the buffed minions does nothing, or a 1-health minion not losing health if pinged with only one damage.[[note]]A 1-health minion with a +1 health brings it to 2. Pinging it with 1 damage brings it back down to 1... except since it's an aura buff, it's always active, and since a minion cannot have 0 health, the buff is instantly re-applied, bringing its health back to 2.[[/note]]
* MookMaker: Several heroes have plenty of cards/hero powers to make mooks, while some minions such as Onyxia can summon additional mooks.
* MoreDakka:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBZoCG5pV9c The general result of having 2 Knife Jugglers on board and summoning multiple minions at once.]] Or having a Flamewaker on board and casting a number of cheap spells.
** ''Augmented Porcupine'''s Deathrattle deals 1 damage to a random enemy equal to its attack. Buff them, field multiple copies of them (or minions who copied their Deathrattle), use Deathrattle activators, [[https://youtu.be/1R1bOnAkhKk?t=638 aaaand...]][[note]]Note that 'brrrr' can be seen as the sound a [[GatlingGood gatling gun]] makes.[[/note]]
* MutualDisadvantage:
** The legendary minion '''Nozdormu''' limits ''both'' players' turns to 15 seconds, a potentially useful effect if one is very quick at thinking on their feet.
** Several cards will have a detrimental effect to all minions on the field (including yours). Destroying all minions (called "board-clear" or "wiping") can be beneficial if your opponent has a significant advantage.
** ''Mogor The Ogre'' from [=GvG=] causes ''all'' minions to attack the wrong target 50% of the time. The game is about carefully trading minions to gain board control, but once Mogor is on the board, ''all bets are off''. You may want to use a spell to remove him due to how disruptive he is.
** ''Mayor Noggenfogger'' is Mogor the Ogre to the next level. He'll randomize all minions attacks ''and'' all targeted spells and hero powers. The only thing that can reliably remove him is a big [=AoE=] spell.
** ''Mojomaster Zihi'' cuts both players down to 5 mana crystals when she's played. Mutual as it is, a well-timed one can cripple an opponent's combo deck without really affecting yourself.
* MythologyGag: Nearly all the bosses of the ''Naxxramas'' expansion are lifted directly from the original Naxxaramas raid in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. As such, there are several references to the characteristics of each boss and how each was fought, including some {{Ascended Meme}}s like Heigan shouting "Dance, fools, dance!" in reference to the "Heigan Dance" re-positioning strategy.
** ''One Night In Karazhan'' has a few, usually coming from Moroes, Medivh's butler, who laments that Majordomo Executus has arrived too soon, he is not prepared for Illidan's arrival, and Reno Jackson tries to loot some silverware. In the same adventure, Prince Malchezaar uses Gorehowl in his boss fight, a reference to the long unexplained and confusing source of the weapon drop in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''.
** In the first mission in ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' against Tirion, despite claiming he's assembled "the finest warriors of Azeroth", resembles more of a terrible raid party, including a DPS who can't deal damage, a tank who can't Taunt, and an [=AFK=] party member. It also references the olden days of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' raids, including a Warlock that kills themselves with fire and a Hunter that rolls always rolls Need on a "hunter weapon".
* NameTron: Annoy-o-tron is definitely the most well-known. There's also the [[Anime/{{Voltron}} V07-TR-0N]] and Omnitron Defense System, both taken from ''World of Warcraft''. ''Rise of Shadows'' introduced Oblivitron, a tank built by mages.
* {{Nerf}}: Blizzard used to take a very, ''very'' hands-off approach to balancing the game, preferring to allow the players to find ways of dealing with GameBreaker decks or releasing new cards in the next set that counter previously strong strategies. As a result, on the rare occasions that they ''do'' make any changes to existing cards, they would ''only'' nerf, never buff, because they don't see a card being too weak (or even [[JunkRare completely and utterly worthless for any purpose whatsoever]]) as a "problem" and try to keep any changes minimal, but on extremely rare cases they might give it a minor compensatory buff (such as giving a minion +1 HP to compensate for increasing its mana cost, which is a ''severe'' nerf). They've also earned something of a reputation for a [[NoKillLikeOverkill "sledgehammer" nerf style]] where they will deal with a problematic card (most infamously Warsong Commander) by utterly destroying it and rendering it completely unplayable. Blizzard has been more lax with sledgehammer nerfs since 2019, however, making balance changes more frequently and have started to actually buff weaker cards and even ''un-nerf'' cards that have been sitting in Wild for some time.
* NiceKitty: [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Cornered_Sentry Cornered Sentry]] summons three 1/1 raptors for the enemy when played. Her summoning quote?
-->'''Cornered Sentry:''' ''Nice little raptors...''[[note]]Run for it![[/note]]
* NinjaPirateZombieRobot:
** Some cards that are [[OriginalGeneration original to Hearthstone]] fall under this category. Examples are N'zoth's first mate, who is an Old God-related Pirate insectoid and the Mech-bear-cat, [[ShoutOut who is half mech, half bear, half cat, or was it half mech, half bear-cat....]]
** This is the gimmick of All-type minions, which, naturally, count as all minion types. They tend to have comically fitting [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hearthstone_gamepedia/images/a/a4/Nightmare_Amalgam_full.jpg card art]] to boot.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** '''[[Creator/HarrisonFord Harrison]]''' '''[[Franchise/IndianaJones Jones]]''', a fedora-wearing explorer wielding a whip and goes "That belongs in a museum!" when he nabs the enemy's weapon. [[SarcasmMode We can't imagine who he might be a reference to]].
** Reno Jackson looks an awful lot like Creator/TomSelleck, who auditioned for the role of Franchise/IndianaJones and would later play a spoof of the character on ''Series/MagnumPI''.
* NonIndicativeName: Stealth minions are just as visible as other minions, they just can't be targeted by enemy spells or attacks. Untargetted and AreaOfEffect damage can still hit them though.
* NoobCave: Practice mode, where players can face an AI of each hero using their basic deck. It's good to unlock the heroes and dry-run new decks, but can't be used to unlock most daily quests.
* NotCompletelyUseless:
** One of the most surprise useful cards is Purify. Purify is a two mana spell which Silences a friendly minion and draws a card, and became one of Hearthstone's biggest memes on release. It turns out, it's pretty damn good with Humongous Razorleaf, as the Un'goro meta demonstrated.
** During part one of the Ice Crown adventure, Lady Deathwisper will open each of her turns by [[HpToOne reducing all of your minions' health to one,]] thus rendering high-health cards designed for tanking damage utterly worthless. The best minions to pick when fighting her are cards with particularly low health in exchange for high damage. Of course, this perfectly fits the description of [[JokeCharacter Magma Rager,]] with its [[OneHitpointWonder singular hit point]] and [[GlassCannon five attack,]] costing only 3 mana to summon in.
** Blood Knight is a forgettable soft counter to Divine Shield minions, which destroys all Divine Shields in play and gains +3/+3 for each one. It became a lot less of a joke when Giggling Inventor was released, a 5 mana minion that summoned two Annoy-o-trons. Granted, Giggling Inventor got a well-deserved nerf, but there was a legitimate time when people were running Blood Knight for an easy 3 mana 9/9 wall-buster.
* NowItsMyTurn: How Aggro counter decks or strategies often play out. The opponent simply takes the early-game punishment while steadily setting up their board, then late-game, clear the opponent's field and dole out punishment of their own with a nigh impenetrable board, often while at low health.
* NowWhichOneWasThatVoice: A particularly egregious example in recent times. [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3681558/fullcredits IMDb]] lists a lot of voice actors from both America and Canada, but not all of them have assigned characters. And while several of those actors have been [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Voice_actors confirmed]], it ultimately remains unclear as to who anyone else voiced, or if the list is even accurate.
* ObviousRulePatch: Several adventure and mission bosses disallow card effects that could very easily trivialize the boss fight. Examples include ''Naxxramus'' bosses preventing you from using Alexstrasza to blow away their 60-90 Health to 15[[note]]perhaps unsurprisingly, future adventure bosses get high armor (which isn't affected by Alexstrasza) rather than high health[[/note]]. All Hero Power disrupting cards like Mindbreaker and Grizzled Wizard were designed to not work against adventure bosses as well. There's also Prince Malchezaar, who was specifically made to not get insta-killed by Sacrificial Pact.
-->'''Prince Malchezaar:''' Hahaha! That could never work on a ''true'' Eredar Lord!
** When [=SN1P-SN4P=], a minion with built-in Echo[[note]]Can play unlimited copies of the card until the end of your turn[[/note]] and Magnetic[[note]]Add the minion's stat and effects to a Mech instead of summoning it[[/note]] was introduced, it immediately caused concerns for abuse. Theoretically, if you could give a Magnetic minion Echo and get its mana cost down to 0, you could Magnetize it onto any existing mech an infinite number of times until the timer runs out, not to mention with Coppertail Impostor, you would have a Mech with Stealth that could much more easily survive the next turn to have a mech to Magnetize onto. There was already one card that could easily create a 0-cost [=SN1P-SN4P=] in Standard: Reckless Experimenter. As a result, Blizzard prematurely nerfed Reckless Experimenter to not reduce cost below 1 just to prevent easy infinite damage setup... but it didn't stop people from abusing this in Wild, where you could just use Summoning Portal and Mechwarper instead. It became common enough that Blizzard decided to flat-out prevent Echo cards from having its cost reduced below 1.
*** Unstable Evolution is a spell that can be cast multiple times on the same turn. It's functionally identical to Echo, but doesn't have the keyword because Blizzard is very fussy about adding non-evergreen keywords outside of the set they were introduced in. Blizzard then later added the Echo keyword into Unstable Evolution because a new card, [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Radiance_of_Azshara Radiance of Azshara]], would otherside make its repeatable copies cost 0 mana[[note]]As mentioned above, Echo cards can't cost less than (1). Pre-Nerf Unstable Evolution, [[LoopholeAbuse which technically doesn't have the keyword]], wouldn't abide by this rule[[/note]].
%%OhCrap: The response of many a player once a legendary hits the field, or a seemingly innocuous card is buffed to high heaven.
* OminousLatinChanting: A brief riff of heroic-sounding chanting plays when either Tirion Fordring or Archmage Antonidas (the Paladin and Mage legendaries, respectively) are summoned. For those who are curious, the clips come from the [[http://youtu.be/YCQsUVZDo8o?t=1m54s Call To Arms]] theme.
* OneHitKill:
** A few different spell cards flat-out destroy a minion without registering damage, and every class has a unique one. A couple of minions will also instantly kill any minion that they deal damage to (whether by attacking or being attacked). Amusingly, Lord Jaraxxus is still considered a Demon when he replaces your Warlock hero, so he is vulnerable to another Warlock's Sacrificial Pact spell, ending the match on the spot.
** ''Poisonous'' minions instantly kill anything they damage, regardless of health. Notably, they need to deal actual damage, so Divine Shield will protect their target from the Poison effect. If you can somehow give a Minion who damages all enemy minions (such as Despicable Dreadlord or ''especially'' Dreadscale, thanks to Deathstalker Rexxar) Poisonous, your enemy is going to have a very bad time. The Dungeon Run boss Ixlid can summon ''Extremely Poisonous'' minions, which works on ''[[HeroKiller Heroes.]]''
** Battlegrounds card [[LeeroyJenkins Leeroy the Reckless]] has a Deathrattle that [[MutualKill instantly kills a minion that killed Leeroy]]. This works even through Divine Shield.
** Uther of The Ebon Blade's Hero Power summons a 2/2 ''Horseman of the Apocalypse'', a boost from his previous 1/1 ''Silver Hand Recruit''. But see, if he manages to summon all [[FourIsDeath four]] of the Horsemen, the enemy Hero ''instantly loses'' regardless of Health, Armor, or even Immunity.
* OriginalGeneration: Hearthstone started based almost entirely off of what the Warcraft series established, but gradually started adding flavor and characters unique to Hearthstone. Nexus-Champion Saraad and Bolf Ramshield, a pair of legendary minions introduced in ''The Grand Tournament'', were two brand new characters that aren't able to be found anywhere in ''World of Warcraft'', and by ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'' we start seeing expansions with an entire ensemble of original creations for Legendaries, with most future expansions following this trend. ''Journey to Un'Goro'' even added an entirely new sapient species to the mix.
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxYP1An4TR8 Buffing your enemy's minion?]] Using that removal spell on your own minion? Forcing your enemy to draw more cards than he can handle? The possibilities are endless.
* OvertOperative:
** The Draconid Operative. He's supposed to be an infiltrator for the Kabal, but not only does he make it obvious he's a dragonkin, he also has a habit of announcing his presence by yelling "SECRET AGENT, COMING THROUGH!"
** Happened again in Rise of Shadows. Convincing Infiltrator is a Faceless One [[HughMann wearing a cloak and wooden mask]], who enters the battlefield saying "Greetings, fellow humans!" To make this even more ridiculous, Faceless Ones are ''shapeshifters''.
* PaletteSwap: The ''Book of Heroes'' single-player content re-uses some cards with the same effect but with a different art and even a different name in order to match the narrative more appropriately.
* {{Pirate}}: One of the minion types. They're generally aggresive and focus on board flooding and weapon synergies, and are most common in Warrior and Rogue.
* PirateParrot:
** From the original launch of the game, there's Captain's Parrot, a 2 mana 1/1 that simply draws a Pirate from your deck.
** ''The Deadmines'' introduced a series of parrot minions that repeat something that happened on a previous turn ([[NotInFrontOfTheParrot geddit?]]), such as Mage's Grey Sage Parrot that repeats the last spell you cast that cost 5 or more mana or Paladin's Sunwing Squawker that casts the last buff you played on itself. These effects even carry over between turns, letting you really cheat mana potentially.
* ThePlague: ''Hakkar, the Soulflayer'' tries to simulate the infamous Corrupted Blood incident back in World of Warcraft. His Deathrattle shuffles a ''Corrupted Blood'' to [[MutualDisadvantage each player's deck]], which deals 3 damage when drawn and ''adds two more copies of itself to the deck.'' With enough bad draws, it will quickly multiply and ensures the victim to take more and more damage before succumbing.
* PlayerArchetypes: Hearthstone was originally designed to appeal to the more "Casual" Timmy and Johnny, as a large number of cards released each expansion seems to lean towards CoolButInefficient when considering the game's competitive "meta". This has lead to many complaints from the game's more "hardcore" Spike-type fans, who often complain about the competitive scene being dominated by two or three optimized deck archetypes.
* PlayEveryDay:
** Daily Quests actually avert this, since they get added automatically whether you log in or not, and that you can save up to three daily quests in your quest log. This means you merely have to log in and play every third day to get everything, unless you want to reroll the Daily or Weekly Quests.[[note]]It used to actually automatically add an extra quest if your log was full and you hadn't gotten one yet for the day (allowing people to only have to log in every four days), but that was patched out.[[/note]]
** The Daily Tasks in Mercenaries mode play this very straight, with a daily task that has to be completed every day. This is not counting the other mercenary-specific tasks that reset themselves every day if nor completed. Thankfully, abandoned mercenary-specific tasks can come back with enough luck instead of being missed forever.
* PlayingWithFire:
** Naturally, mages have a variety of fire magics in their arsenal, including Fireball (4 mana, deal 6 damage), Flamestrike (7 mana, 4 damage to all enemy minions), and Pyroblast (10 mana, deal 10 damage) in addition to their hero powers. If a mage possesses Archmage Antonidas (their legendary), ''every'' cast will generate another Fireball card. [[OhCrap Including the newly spawned Fireballs]].
** The Wild Pyromancer. "Do you like to play with fire?"
* PowerAtAPrice:
** The Warlock in a nutshell. Gul'dan has access to Demons that are very good for their cost in Mana, but cost him in other ways like HP, discarding cards, or breaking a Mana crystal. As a result of having access to heavy-hitters earlier than he ought to, the general strategy of Warlocks is to rush them and dominate the match before an opponent can catch up.
** The Overload mechanic for Shamans. Cards that Overload cause the player to be short X number of Mana crystals next turn to balance out how abnormally strong the card is for its current cost.
** As for Warriors, they have a lot of cards that are contingent on one's own minions being damaged.
** Some Neutral minions also have high stats for their mana cost but with a catch. Some cause the enemy to benefit (giving them extra mana crystals, for instance) while others just impede your future turns (like jacking up your minions' mana costs).
** Some Battlecry effects can become more of a disadvantage to the player if they wish to play the minion anyway, which might result in them having to silence one of their own minions or returning a minion to their hand without the usual benefit.
** The Lich King grants powerful Death Knight cards to his controller, but a few have extreme drawbacks that would make you think twice from using them. Namely ''Doom Pact''[[note]]Destroys all minions on board, and remove cards from your deck equal to the number of destroyed minions; good when there's only few, powerful minions on board, but against a full board it will bring you that much closer to fatigue.[[/note]], ''Army of the Dead''[[note]]Remove 5 cards from your deck, and instantly summons any minion such removed; uses up 20% of your deck in an instant, it can generate a lot of board swing if you draw 3 or more minions, but just as often it simply discards 5 potentially powerful cards for nothing. The effect also bypasses Battlecries.[[/note]], and ''Obliterate''[[note]]destroys a minion and take damage equal to its health.[[/note]]
* PowerCopying: The Epic minion ''Sideshow Spelleater'' replaces your Hero power with your enemy's. While it doesn't work versus AI, it does work on the empowered Hero powers and especially beneficial if you manage to copy [[EliteMooks Lord Jaraxxus']] or [[KillItWithFire Ragnaros']] Hero powers.
** If you want to create a true MirrorMatch situation, what you do is copy the opponent's deck with Archbishop Benedictus after emptying your deck, copy their hand with Azalina Soulthief, and copy their Hero Power with Sideshow Spelleater.
* PowerCreep:
** In its early incarnation, BoringButPractical minions with excellent stats such as Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre were commonly used. Nowadays there are minions with equal stats but also come with other effects, making them superior to vanilla versions. In general, incremental value has been largely overtaken by combos or fast, aggressive lists. Even value staples like Piloted Shredder and Dr. Boom have largely phased out in Wild.[[note]]Also realise that Piloted Shredder and Dr. Boom themselves were examples of power creep, since they completely blew every 4 or 7 mana minion out of the water at the time.[[/note]]
** In the vanilla game, a minion's subtype mattered. You could put Wild Pyromancer in your deck; a 3/2 with an ability, or Bloodfen Raptor; a 3/2 that was a Beast. The trade-off was that the minion would be better with synergy. Nowadays, neutral Beasts are frequently printed with vanilla stats and upsides, making their Basic counterparts pretty bad in comparison. It's even doubled over power creep, since tribal synergy has only gotten stronger.[[labelnote:More detail]]Mechs introduced this rule, since ''Goblins vs. Gnomes'' was built on Blizzard throwing in as many Mechs and synergy cards as they could and seeing what happened, without much regard for how strong each Mech was alone. Pirates are quite rare and weren't printed much during 2017 thanks to Patches the Pirate, but ''Rastakhan's Rumble'' introduced a few 'better than vanilla' Pirates. Dragons are a reverse case, since they started as RuleOfCool but actually gained tribal effects in ''Blackrock Mountain'' and are now printed with those effects in mind. Murlocs are still heavily restricted because of how synergistic and swarm-focused they are. Elementals run on the rule of "If it's standalone, it has vanilla stats. If it has Elemental synergy, it takes a stat penalty". Neutral Demons went from barely existing to done for flavour, although Demon synergy is still restricted to Warlocks and Demon Hunters. Totems are Totems, and are incomparable to normal minions.[[/labelnote]]
* PowerEqualsRarity: ZigZagged. Rarer cards tend to have better effects, making them more mana efficient than Basic ones.[[note]]Compare Bloodfen Raptor, a 2-Mana 3/2 Basic Beast with Wild Pyromancer, a 2-Mana 3/2 Rare minion deals dmage to all minions when you casT any spell, and Recombobulator, a 2-Mana 3/2 Epic minion who can transform another friendly minion into another one of its same cost.[[/note]] However, some Basic cards are considered ''very'' mana efficient for their cost, to the point that they are considered the gold standard for their category. [[note]]Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre are 4-Mana 4/5 and 6-Mana 6/7 respectively, very cost-efficient for their power, and Flamestrike is the single most feared Board Clear in the game.[[/note]] Plus there are a LOT of "Legendaries" that are [[JunkRare complete and utter unplayable trash only good for the 400 dust you get for disenchanting them]], most infamously The Boogeymonster.[[note]]An ''abysmally'' under-statted and overpriced piece of drek with a terrible ability that wouldn't even nearly be worth its absurd cost even if you DID ever get to use it, which you won't.[[/note]]
* PowerMakesYourVoiceDeep: All Murloc cards say the same thing on being summoned, but the more powerful Murlocs (especially the Murloc Warleader and the legendary Old Murk-Eye) have deeper voices.
* ThePowerOfRock: Putting down the [[Music/Level80EliteTaurenChieftain Elite Tauren Chieftain]] puts one of a handful of MagicMusic riffs into both players' hands.
* PowerUpMount: There's a few spells that are this in flavour, which work by buffing a minion by +X/+Y and giving them an effect, as well as a Deathrattle to summon an X/Y minion with said effect. For example, the paladin spell Spikeridge Steed gives a minion +2/+6, Taunt, and summons a 2/6 Stegodon when it dies. ''United in Stormwind'' added a whole cycle of spells like this.
* PracticalTaunt: Minions with Taunt force opponents to go through them before minions without taunt, forming a very important line of defense for GlassCannon creatures. Hero powers and spells go right by them, though.
* PreemptiveDeclaration: When summoned, Medivh's Valet says, "Excuse me, you are on fire." If his battlecry activates, he will then toss a flame at a designated target.
* PromotedToPlayable: Illidan Stormrage was promoted from a crappy and hopelessly Power Creeped Classic Legendary to the base hero of the new Demon Hunter class. This promotion also lead to his original card incarnation to be replaced with Xavius, who is mechanically almost completely identical to the old Illidan[[note]]The 2/1 tokens he summons are Demons instead of Elementals. Also, the effect now triggers ''after'' playing a card and not ''when'' playing a card, which removes a lot of extremely buggy interactions.[[/note]].
** Arthas the Lich King also became the base hero for the new Death Knight class in ''March of the Lich King''.
* PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage:
** Golden copies of Gelbin Mekkatorque and Elite Tauren Chieftan were given out for free to players during the beta (Gelbin was for making a real money purchase while ETC was for attending Blizzcon 2013). Both cards are next to useless, with symmetrical and very random effects. To make them even worse, they're restricted to Wild format as well. Even before the introduction of formats, neither of them could be drafted in Arena.
** Marin the Fox, given out during Blizzcon 2017, is in the same boat. Although in his defense, he's much more AwesomeButImpractical than outright terrible, but he's still too impractical to see play in any real deck. He likewise became Wild-only once K&C rotated out.
** Sathrovarr, given out during Blizzcon 2019, gives you three copies of a minion for your battlefield, hand, and deck. Only problem is he costs a whopping 9 mana ''and'' requires you to have the minion already on board. The only decent practical use for him is with a strong 0-cost minion like Shirvallah or in Wild Malygos Druid combo decks where the Aviana/Kun combo makes his cost not matter.
** Averted big time with [=SN1P-SN4P=]. That card is very strong, to the point where it might be a little ''over''powered. Of course, that was the point - adding a new card to the game to shake up the meta. Unlike Gelbin and ETC, he was given to every single player for free, so everyone was on fair ground.
* PunnyName:
** Some cards, such as Dark Wispers (Druid card, summon five Wisps or give a minion +5/+5 and taunt) and Arfus (legendary minion that is an undead dog). The description of the former [[LamePunReaction assures us that the person who named the card was promptly fired.]] Then we got Wispering Woods, whose description states that [[BrickJoke they didn't actually fire the person who named Dark Wispers]].
** The Maw and Disorder mini-set combines [[{{Hell}} The Maw]] in ''World of Warcraft'' with ''Series/LawAndOrder'', to say nothing of [[HurricaneOfPuns the cards in said mini-set]].
* PurposelyOverpowered:
** A lot of the Tavern Brawl game mode-exclusive cards would be downright {{Game Breaker}}s if played in regular matches.
** The Treasures you get Dungeon Run and similar PVE modes are absolutely gamebreakingly powerful. But given it's a Roguelike, you'll ''need'' these uber-powerful items.
** Being a PVP version of Dungeon Runs, Duels features extremely overpowered treasure cards and hero powers to use. It's balanced by both the constantly growing semi-random decks and the fact that everyone has cards that are just as broken.
* PuzzleBoss:
** Some bosses in the Solo Adventures can feel like this, but the best example is the third mission of Osris Temple from League of Explorers; The 'boss fight' (running away from a crumbling temple) lasts exactly 10 turns with an exact specific pattern, with only one randomizer [[note]]the spike pit which, if you take the risky option, may either deal 10 damage to your hero or leave your hero alone[[/note]] aside from your draw.
** The whole concept of the Puzzle Labs, where you're given a predetermined board state and hand, with the goal of either defeating the enemy hero that very turn, replicate their board state, clear the board, or to survive a load of incoming damage.
* RandomEffectSpell: ''Hearthstone'' fully embraces its digital design space by introducing lots of cards with ''very'' random effects.
** Examples go as far back as Unstable Portal in GVG adding ''any'' minion in the entire game to your hand and reducing its cost by 3. This is usually garbage, but could easily win you the game if you roll high enough, which is why it saw play in oldschool Tempo Mage decks.
** The Mad Bomber card (and later its bigger cousins, Madder Bomber and ''Maddest'' Bomber) deals multiple damage spread out randomly among everything on the board. If the RandomNumberGod is in a good mood, it can easily turn a game in your favor. Most of the time, it will just nuke everything on your side of the board.
** Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, has been officially christened by the ''Hearthstone'' fanbase as '''the''' Random Number God. He's a 10 mana 7/5 that will cast a random spell with a random target for every spell you've cast that game. On average he will clear the board (including himself), draw a ton a cards from your deck, discard all of yours, summon more minions, kill ''those'', and then throw Pyroblasts who-knows-where.
** The Mage spells Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron and Rune of the Archmage as well as the legendary Solarion Prime are beautifully chaotic examples. The first casts 10 random spells at 10 random targets, Rune casts 20 mana worth of Mage spells that attempt to target enemy characters, and Solarion casts 5 Mage spells that also target enemies.
** Yogg-Saron returns in ''Madness at the Darkmoon Faire'' as '''Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate'''. If you played 10 spells, he'll spin the wheel for one of six totally wacky effects: His old Battlecry effect, filling your hand with spells that cost 0 for the turn, destroying every other minion and gain their stats, stealing three enemy minions, filling the board with random minions and giving yours Rush, and a small chance to cast Pyroblast at random targets until you or the enemy dies.
* RandomizedTransformation: Shamans have access to various evolve and devolve effects, which transform minions into random ones that cost 1 more or 1 less respectively. While a higher-cost minion will generally be better, it's still a highly variable effect. You could turn your 3-drop into an 8/8 [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Nozdormu_the_Timeless Nozdormu the Timeless]], but you could just as easily turn it into a 1/1 [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Wicked_Skeleton Wicked Skeleton]].
* RandomlyGeneratedQuests: The game uses a daily and weekly quest system, which you complete to earn rewards. You get one daily quest every day and three weekly quests every Monday, and can reroll one of each per day if you don't like the requirements. Quests are usually things like playing enough cards of a specific type, dealing damage to the opponent, playing games as specific classes, or winning games in certain gamemodes.
* RandomNumberGod:
** Many cards can deal random numbers of damage or target a random enemy. The RNG is affectionately referred to as [=RNGesus=] among streamers, and you can expect prayers before a major play.
** The overuse of RNG-based mechanics is actually the game's biggest criticism from people who don't like it and is a source of constant arguments about whether it's a good thing or not. Although ''all'' [=CCGs=] use an inherent amount of RNG by default, ''Hearthstone'' openly embraces randomness on a previously-unseen scale, with cards drawing from potentially ''dozens'' of possible effects, some of which can win or lose you an game in an instant (just ask anyone who ever saw a Doomsayer pop out of a Piloted Shredder).
** Mayor Noggenfogger, for a whopping cost of 9 Mana, will randomize ''every target''. It doesn't apply to just minions like Mogor the Ogre, it applies to every spell and hero power, too. Anything that can be targeted will be random. He can make your opponent hit Deathwing with their weapon, attack face through your Taunt, heal the opponent's completely healthy minion, or cast Fireball on themselves, or he can do the exact same thing to you. Also, he completely randomizes Emotes. There's even a small chance to use the removed "Sorry" emote!
** If you thought Yogg'Saron's random spells were wacky, why not have one go off ''every turn''? With The Amazing Reno, his Hero Power does just that. Sure, the chain of events won't be as chaotic, but he can just as easily give you or screw over the board at just the right or wrong time.
* RaptorAttack: There are a handful of raptor minions, most famously the Basic vanilla 3/2 minion Bloodfen Raptor.
* ReadTheFreakingManual: There have been a good number of recorded instances of misplays due to bad play order involving The Coin. A great example of this involve Haunting Vision and Kalecgos, which provide a mana discount to spells right after playing it or the first spell of your turn, respectively. You can guess what happens if you try to coin out a Kalecgos at 9 mana or a discounted spell you just discovered and you're 1 mana short. An even worse example is if you use it with Electra Stormsurge. Even the ''flavor text'' mocks you for playing The Coin right after Electra. This also shows up in the Puzzle Lab, where one puzzle gives you a Coin and a Celestial Emissary (gives +2 Spell Damage on your next spell). It's very possible to mess up this puzzle by wasting Celestial Emissary's Spell Damage on The Coin, ending up 2 damage short.
* RecordNeedleScratch: Hitting the “Cancel” button while waiting for an opponent causes one of these, albeit a very short one.
* ReducedManaCost:
** This is one of the strongest effects in the game, since it removes the chief limitation you have each turn. Mana-cheating staples like Sorcerer's Apprentice and Shadowstep see tonnes of play. Emperor Thaurissan, a 6-mana legendary that simply reduces the cost of the cards in your hand by 1 at the end of your turn, is considered one of the best cards ever printed and still sees Wild play. Mana cost reducers are some of the most frequently nerfed cards as well.
** One very notable example is Robes of Gaudiness, a Passive treasure introduced in the Dalaran Heist that halves the cost of every card, rounded down. Far and away the best treasure ever, it lets you steamroll bosses by itself, since your highest-cost cards will be five mana at most. It had the honour of being slashed to almost never occurring in single-player, and was banned from Duels in less than 24 hours.
* ResurrectiveImmortality:
** Dreadsteed is a 4 mana 1/1, but returns to the board at the end of the turn whenever it's destroyed. Prior to an ObviousRulePatch due to Defile, it instead resummoned itself ''instantly''[[note]]Defile is a 2 mana spell that deals 1 damage to all minions and repeats each time it kills a minion. With Dreadsteed, the Warlock would have been able to clear any board for 6 mana and leave a Dreedstead in play, and also cause an extraordinarily long animation until the card hit its action limit[[/note]].
** Zerek, Master Cloner is a Priest Legendary that resummons itself on death so long as you cast a spell on it while it was alive.
** The Reborn mechanic is a limited version of this. The first time a Reborn minion dies, it comes back with 1 health.
* ResetButton: The practice of "Board Clear", where you try and clear the enemy's (and sometimes, your own as well) side to put a stop on the enemy's momentum and let the minion development phase to begin anew. Incredibly vital when the enemy has the advantage, and clearing a fully-developed board can often break the enemy's back, ending the fight there and then.
** On a more specific note, the Druid's ''Tree of Life'' spell restores all characters (minions ''and'' heroes) to their full hp.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge:
** Paladins can get the ''Avenge'' Secret by completing Naxxramas. If any of your minions die during the enemy turn, one of your minions get a +3/+2.
** And from Blackrock Mountain adventure, we have Emperor Dagan Thaurissan. [[spoiler:Kill his wife, and he can use his hero power. [[OneHitKill That hero power deals 30 damage.]]]]
* RocketTagGameplay: The Blood Magic Tavern Brawls cause all spells to be CastFromHitPoints. Between Mage's direct damage spells, Paladins unloading a lot of buffs on a cheap Charge minion, and Druids having fantastic draw power and the ability to attack the opponent directly, games end as soon as turn 1 or 2, with one player burning through their health to kill the opponent as fast as they can or die trying.
* {{Roguelike}}:
** The ''Kobolds and Catacombs'' expansion gave the single-player Dungeon Run mode, which is basically a card-based Roguelike. You start with 10 cards and 15 health, and as you progress, you get more cards to fill your deck and more importantly, [[PurposelyOverpowered absolutely powerful]] treasures to help you along the quest. And given that Roguelikes in general are NintendoHard, you'll need those treasures. Finally, the cards you get, the treasures, and even the bosses you fight are randomized every time, ensuring no two Dungeon Run experience will be the same. ''The Witchwood'' and ''Rastakhan's Rumble'' had their own variations, albeit less replayable ones than the original.
** ''Rise of Shadows'' introduced the largest version of this yet, with multiple wings and unlockable Hero Powers and decks. ''Saviors of Uldum'' further added to this, with each explorer having a large set of unlockable items.
* RubeGoldbergDevice: A popular genre of Hearthstone videos. Set up a complicated sequence that gets triggered and watch the ensuing hilarity. [[https://youtu.be/GjbrCiIR89g?t=208 For example, summoning Jaraxxus triggered Knife Juggler that killed Explosive Sheep that killed Sylvanas that Mind Controlled Jaraxxus...]]
* RuleOfFunny: Most of the cards' flavor texts are written to be funny one way or another.
* RunningGag:
** Any card with an unclear name (such as Lightspawn and Spellslinger) will have flavor text asking what exactly the name is.[[note]]"Light's Pawn or Spawn of the Light" and "Does he fling spells or do his spells linger around?" respectively[[/note]]
** There's been a minor fixation with [[JokeCharacter the comically bad]] Magma Rager ever since ''The Grand Tournament''. Its infamy for its incredibly awful Health gave a rise to Rager spinoffs that are mostly only slightly better than it. Then there was ''League of Explorers'', where in your first battle against Rafaam he'll ''make fun of you'' for having Magma Rager in your deck. Some of the Magma Rager's cousins include:
*** Ice Rager from ''The Grand Tournament'', who has the advantage of having double its health at 2 Health. Its flavor text jokes that he's cooler than Magma Rager.
*** [[SdrawkcabName Am'gam Rager]] from ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', although it's equally terrible for the opposite reasons; it's a 1/5 instead of a 5/1. Yet, the flavor text jokes that it's [[PowerCreep "peerc rewoP"]].
*** Shadow Rager from ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'', a Rogue-specific version. This one has Stealth to make up for its horrible health, so although it will die from a Maelstrom Portal, it can't be killed with a Fireblast.
*** Wax Rager in ''Kobolds & Catacombs'''s Dungeon Run has all the stats of Magma Rager, except that it's a rare [[PurposelyOverpowered Treasure card]] that it revives itself instantly on death.
*** Steel Rager in ''The Boomsday Project'', while it costs 1 more mana, it's got Rush to take advantage of its attack. It's also a Mech.
*** Faceless Rager in ''Rise of Shadows'' has Magma Rager's crappy stats by default, but it has a Battlecry that copies a friendly minion's Health, making it the first Rager card to be actually ''good''.
*** Divine Rager from ''Scholomance Academy'', another 4 mana Rager that adds Divine Shield to the mix but is still pretty much unplayable.
*** ''Madness at the Darkmoon Faire'' throws in Rock Rager, which is doubly better than Magma Rager as a 5/1 Taunt for 2 mana, and yet is still woefully underpowered.
*** ''March of the Lich King'' has Scourge Rager. It has a whopping (for a Rager) 4 Health and Reborn, but its Battlecry makes it kill itself when played, effectively turning it into a vanilla 5/1 that can be healed.
** ''The Grand Tournament'' expansion introduced Refreshment Vendor, a card that talks about buying funnel cakes when played. Later sets gave us Undercity Huckster and Priest of the Feast, who also talk about funnel cakes. Even hidden flavor texts are not safe from this: Kabal Trafficker also mentions funnel cakes in her flavor text, and the Devilsaur Egg's flavor text claims that it's a key ingredient in the recipe.
* SarcasmMode: The emotes often come off as this to many people, which is made more ambiguous by the lack of any other chat in random play. It doesn't help that many of the heroes' voices sound smug and condescending.
* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: The flavor text for Bloodlust is simply ''"[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YePpuaIi8c4 blaarghghLLGHRHARAAHAHHH!!]]"'' Not that it needs any more, since the sound of the spell being cast is unmistakable.
* ScaryStingingSwarm: The appropriately named [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/BEEEES!!! BEEEES!!!]] from Uldum, which summons a swarm of bees to attack a target. Can notably also be cast on your own minions, making it useful for triggering Overkill effects on minions that can survive the attacks (like, say, a [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Linecracker Linecracker]]).
* SealedEvilInACan: To get [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Azari the Devourer]], you need to summon a certain legendary minion whose battlecry is giving you the First Seal card into your hand. Casting the First Seal summons a demon and Second Seal. You need to keep casting the Seal until the Fifth and final Seal, which gives you Azari whose battlecry outright destroys the enemy's ''deck'', immediately sending them into fatigue. That being said, since it takes a total of ''41'' mana for this effect to take place, to call it AwesomeButImpractical may be an understatement.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: The Doomsayer minion destroys all minions on the board (including himself) if he is alive at the start of your turn. In other words, the end of the world only happens because he's there predicting it.
* SelfImposedChallenge: Before its rotation from Standard, there was a "Cursed Blade Challenge" going around, involving the player equipping Cursed Blade[[note]]1-mana 2/3 Warrior weapon that doubles all damage dealt to your hero[[/note]] from their very first turn, never letting it get used up or get broken (or at least replacing it shortly afterwards without taking damage in between), and defeating the opponent only while both players are in fatigue (to avoid minimizing the downsides of the Blade by rushing the opponent down). It needed ridiculous luck to beat, but it was ''satisfying'' to do so.
* SequenceBreaking:
** Druids can make use of Innervate (+1 mana for that turn only) and Wild Growth (+1 empty mana crystal to be filled next turn) to play cards of higher mana cost that could normally be played at that stage in the game. They can also use Biology Project (+2 mana for both players for the price of 1 mana) to deliberately invoke this. In fact, if you have both copies of Innervate and Biology Project while going second with The Coin (another free +1 mana), it's actually possible to play something for 6 mana as early as turn 1! With The Grand Tournament expansion, ''Astral Communion'' discards your hand but grants you 10 mana crystal for 4 mana, which means you can play big minions way, way earlier, as long as you actually draw them... There's also Duskfallen Aviana, who makes the first card played each turn cost 0, which is good... except for the fact the effect works for your ''opponent'' first.
** Nozdormu the Timeless, a Paladin legendary, maxes out both player's mana crystals as early as turn 4, instantly bringing the game to its late game phase.
** Rogue has a lesser version named Preparation, which gives them a 2-mana discount on their next spell. On one hand, Preparation can't stack with itself unlike Innervate (and only works with spells), but on the other hand, it's a bigger discount, and it works very well with the Rogue's {{Combo}} cards. ''Mean Street of Gadgetzan'' gave Rogues a Counterfeit Coin, which is basically the same as the usual Coin in terms of effect, but thus allows Rogues to play more expensive cards sooner than normal. It gets even crazier with Academic Espionage from ''The Boomsday Project'', which shuffles in 10 random cards cards from your opponent's class which cost '''1 mana''', which means it's actually possible to play something as much as 10 Mana on turn 2 if you play Coin + Preparation + Academic Espionage.
** The Giant Warlock deck (or Handlock) can do this in a sense. The whole point is to exploit his Gul'dan's hero power to keep hurting himself and drawing cards so that he can play Mountain Giant (12 mana, costs 1 less for each card in his hand) and Molten Giant (25 mana, costs 1 less for each point of damage your hero has taken) much faster than normal.
** Many, many ways to cheat out minions early have been devised in Hearthstone's history, including but not limited to:
*** Cards that summon weaker copies of another minion (Barnes, Shadow Essence, Dollmaster Dorian); while weak on their own, any Resurrection effect will bring them back to life with full stats
*** Recruit cards with high level or no level restrictions (Possessed Lackey, Gather Your Party)
*** Cards that summon certain minions out of their hand (Skull of the Man'ari, Coffin Crasher)
*** Cards that swap out minions with something else (Madam Goya, Dr. Morrigan)
*** Cards that summon random minions in a controlled method (Ancestor's Call, Eureka!, Duel!), if you build your deck around big minions
*** Or any combination of the above. Here's an example: On turn 5, Rogue plays Kobold Illusionist, triggers Deathrattle with Necrium Blade, summons a 1/1 Sliver Vanguard that was in their hand, Silver Vanguard dies and Recruits a 8-mana minion like Ragnaros or Lich King.
* ServileSnarker: Unlike other minions, a handful of demons don't feel like fighting and consistently make their grievances clear.
-->'''Blood Imp:''' Sure, send the little guy!\\
'''Flame Imp:''' Ugh, is this really necessary?\\
'''Imp Gang Boss:''' Fine! Gosh!\\
'''Felguard:''' Too pathetic to fight your own battles?\\
'''Malchezaar's Imp:''' I don't wanna!\\
'''Witchwood Imp:''' This was NOT in my contract.
* ShapeshifterModeLock: This is the default setting in this game: Whenever a card is transformed into a different card, it will remain as that new card for the rest of the match. This becomes important once you include recycling effects such as reanimation; If your Ragnaros gets polymorphed into a sheep then killed, you will revive him as a sheep and not Ragnaros.
* SheatheYourSword: Sometimes the best move is to do nothing and just pass. As some cards require a minion[[note]]and some of them require specifically ''enemy'' minion[[/note]] as a valid target, keeping your board empty might make them unable to reduce the size of their hand and thus risk overdrawing and burning their key card. Thijs in particular is a fan of this. It's just turn 2 and the enemy Druid hit his Warrior for free 1 damage? Joke's on the Druid, as that gives extra card draw with ''Battle Rage''. Enemy is Mecha'Thun Druid with 4 cards left in hand? [[https://youtu.be/UwRkoJ1DvsM?t=510 Play nothing so the Druid can't use their Wrath or Spellstone, sending them over the edge and play Mecha'thun too early.]]
** Quest Priests playing Activate the Obelisk is notorious for invoking this, as their quest requires healing 15 Health. The best thing for the opponent to do in the early turns is to avoid attacking the Priest to slow down their quest progress.
* ShootTheMedicFirst: It's generally a good idea to target continuously healing minions (Lightwell in particular) as soon as possible before they become a nuisance. The Repair Bot has the unique distinction of randomly healing both friendly and enemy characters, making it a potential liability for its owner as well. The biggest of this is Kel'Thuzad, who will resurrect any dead minion at the end of every turn. Either you silence or take him out first, or your efforts will be futile.
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft Has its own page.]]
* SimpleYetAwesome:
** ''Bloodmage Thalnos'' is a 1/1 Legendary for 2 mana that adds +1 spell damage and a Deathrattle that draws you a card. Too simple to be worth silencing, he is considered an excellent addition in a wide variety of decks.
** ''Acidic Swamp Ooze'' is a basic card, a [=3/2=] for 2 mana, making it a solid minion to play in most cases. However, its weapon-destroying Battlecry is simply invaluable versus weapon users. The only other minions that outright destroy enemy weapons are ''Gluttonous Ooze'' or ''Harrison Jones'', which are epic and legendary respectively.
** In general, Class-specific cards are just plain more efficient than the Neutral ones. For example, ''Water Elemental'' may deal less damage than ''Chillwind Yeti'', but it's also tougher ''and'' comes with Freeze effect which is incredibly useful against weapon users.
** The Tavern Brawl "Top 2" enforces this. Players choose only two cards and their deck is filled with fifteen of each. Thus players are forced to come up with extremely simple strategies to win. The sequel, ''Top 3'', does the same but with ten copies of three cards.
* SituationalSword: Some cards are very good at dealing with certain situations only, but since opponents can come with any deck, it's a matter of luck whether they'll actually see any real use. It should be noted that such cards are generally looked down upon during deck construction as they occupy valuable deck space, but if obtained via random card generation or through the Discover mechanic they may have been generated in the exact situation where they shine best.
** One example is the Blood Knight, a 3-cost 3/3 minion who removes all divine shields on that are on the board at the time of play and gains +3/+3 for each shield removed this way. Extremely useful against (or ''for'') Paladins and the non-class specific divine shield minions, but otherwise just an average 3-cost minion that could potentially take up a slot for a better card.
** Big Game Hunter is another classic example, able to neutralize any minion with 7 or more attack when played... great against many Legendaries or buff-dependent strategies, but against aggro decks that employ a ZergRush, that will rarely come into play.
** Eater of Secrets is all but explicitly stated to be the counter to Secret Paladin. With no secrets to remove, a 2/4 for 4 Mana is crappy. With one secret, 3/5 is under par, but at least it removed a secret, and all the better if it was a Mage's Ice Block standing between you and victory. After your opponent just played Mysterious Challenger? They just got a major pain in the ass to remove. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by its summoning quote, which seems to directly address the Mysterious Challenger.
--->'''Mysterious Challenger:''' Who am I? None of your business!\\
'''Eater of Secrets:''' I know who you are!
** Skulking Geist is a hard counter against Jade Druid (specifically, the card Jade Idol) due to its effects of destroying all 1-cost spells in all players' decks. However, by the time a 6-cost minion hits the board, most other decks can make do without their 1-cost spells anyway, and Skulking Geist's horrid stats won't help much in that case. Hilariously enough, Skulking Geist also spells disaster against anyone who played the spell Explore Un'Goro, which replaces their ''entire deck'' with copies of a 1-mana spell that Discovers a random card.
* SingleUseShield: Divine Shield protects a minion from the first instance of damage it would take. This allows minions to survive a blow from even the mighty Deathwing, but the shield also breaks under a single point of damage.
* SkillGateCharacters:
** C'thun and his cultists are ''Hearthstone's'' version of a starter deck, being easy to use, easy to understand, and since most of the synergy cards are neutral, playable in every class.
** All of the final bosses from the adventures are meant to be huge, game ending bombshells for people who don't have the dust or gold income to afford a more powerful one. Prince Malchezaar is probably the best example, as he shuffles 5 random legendaries into your deck, letting you play with extremely strong cards you don't own. However, as a player's collection expands and their deck adopts a more focused strategy, Prince Malchezaar starts running the risk of thickening the deck with cards that don't contribute to the strategy, leading to unfavored draws.
** Aggro decks are generally considered beginner's decks: easy to pick up and learn and good at stomping their way through the lower ranks, but fall off as you climb the ladder and meet players that can shut them down more effectively. That being said, a skilled player can viably play aggro decks at higher levels and many players do hit Legend with them, but a new players tend to be more successful with aggro decks than the other deck archetypes.
** Whizbang the Wonderful is less so a card and more of a deck randomizer. Playing a deck with Whizbang in it results in him giving you a random deck recipe made by Blizzard, allowing you to play with at at least 100 cards you may or may not already own. The decks feature coherent strategies and solid cards, but are un-optimized, meaning that a wealthier player will likely be able to make something better and won't see any reason to use him. That said, he also allows poorer players to gain access to a massive chunk of the game's library for just 1600 dust! His successor - Zayle, Shadow Cloak - does the same thing, only with 2 major differences: the recipes are more limited (only 5 decks are available compared to Whizbang's 18) and he does not have to be opened in a pack or crafted, as purchasing the Dalaran Heist adventure will unlock him for free.
* SpidersAreScary: Parodied in ''Curse of Naxxramas'' as Kel'Thuzad presents Maexxna.
--> '''Kel'thuzad''': Maexxna is a GIANT SPIDER! MUAHAHAHAHA!
* SplashDamageAbuse: Like some other card games, AOE spells can be used to indirectly damage or de*stroy minions that cannot normally be targeted, usually because of Stealth, their inherent spell protection, or simply hiding behind an annoying Taunt minion.
* SpotlightStealingSquad:
** The Mage class received this complaint due to the fact that Jaina is the player's starting hero, the class has many powerful (sometimes to the point of GameBreaker status) cards such as Fireball, Frostbolt, Flamestrike, Polymorph, etc. What pushed this over the edge for the players is the announcement that the recent patch would add Khadgar - the ''second'' alternative hero for Mage after Medivh instead of other classes (Rogue, Priest, Druid, Shaman and Warlock) that didn't even receive ''one''.
** In term of cards, C'Thun is clearly this for the ''Whisper of the Old Gods'' expansion because of the number of cards that specifically buffed it compare to the other Old Gods who simply support other cards type that existed prior (N'Zoth for Deathrattle minions, Yogg-Saron for spells and Y'Shaarj for big costed minions).
** In a more meta example, if Blizzard prints several class-specific cards that are meant to create an archetype and it ends up being terrible, players will complain and claim they're "wasted card slots". The same applies if Blizzard prints a few cards over several expansions that are either archetype cards that are not enough to make a low tier archetype good enough (Ex. The constant trickling of Discardlock cards in 2017) or give a class too good cards when they're already at the top of the meta (Ex. Shaman in 2016, Priest in 2017).
* StatusBuffDispel: Silence effects are useful for negating whatever buffs an opposing minion has (especially Deathrattle effects). The Priest spell Mass Dispel does this on ''all'' enemies at once.
* StatusEffectPoweredAbility: Mages have a number of cards that gain bonus effects if used on Frozen targets, usually dealing extra damage or outright destroying the target.
* StealthPun: ''One Night in Karazhan'''s disco theme isn't totally out of left field. In ''World of Warcraft'', Karazhan is a dungeon that opens to players at level 68, and is useful for leveling and gear for some levels thereafter. In other words, it's a ''seventies'' dungeon.
* StoneWall: Some taunt cards balance out high health with little to no attack power, though giving a creature the same attack power as their health can cost as little as one mana with the right card. Some non-taunt minions also have these kinds of stats, making them perfect for other cards that give minions taunt.
* StreamerFriendlyMode: Streamer Mode censors the player's name and Battletag, as well as their opponent's name, to protect streamers' privacy.
* StuffBlowingUp: While it has existed since classic, [=GvG=] brought a multitude of explosive cards such as Darkbomb, Lightbomb, Madder Bomber, Bomb Lobber, and more.
* SurplusDamageBonus: Normally, dealing excessive damage to a minion is discouraged as a core concept of the game is efficient trading of minions, but it's invoked with the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Overkill]] mechanic introduced in Rastakhan's Rumble. You gain bonus effects by dealing more damage than necessary to kill a minion. Even before Rumble, Mage had [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Explosive_Runes Explosive Runes]], a Secret that damages an enemy minion and then inflicts any excess damage to the enemy hero.
* SwitchOutMove: The whole point of the [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Alarm-o-Bot Alarm-o-Bot]] is to sneak big creatures into play on the sly. Players of AnimateDead decks from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' will feel right at home.
* SymmetricEffect:
** As part of their PowerAtAPrice design, many Warlock cards inflict a penalty on both players. For example, [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Hellfire Hellfire]] damages everything in play, including both heroes, and [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Altar_of_Fire Altar of Fire]] mills the top three cards of each deck.
** In opposition to Warlocks, several Druid cards give ''positive'' effects to both players. [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Grove_Tender Grove Tender]] has a "Choose One" effect that either grants both players 1 extra mana crystal or draws one card for both players, and [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Dew_Process Dew Process]] makes it so that both players draw an extra card at the start of their turn for the rest of the game. [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Duskfallen_Aviana Duskfallen Aviana]] is an example of a symmetric effect primarily benefitting the user's ''opponent''. She makes the first card on each player's turn free. Unfortunately, this means that your opponent gets to take advantage of it first, so they can get a free card and then kill Aviana before you get to use her effect.
** Two of Paladin's major themes are having "fair" effects, and manipulating minion stats. They have multiple cards that change the stats of both friendly and enemy minions in play, including [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Equality Equality]] (to 1 health), [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Sunkeeper_Tarim Sunkeeper Tarim]] (to 3/3), and [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Shrink_Ray Shrink Ray]] (to 1/1).
** The "project" cycle ([[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Biology_Project Biology Project]], [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Demonic_Project Demonic Project]], [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Research_Project Research Project]], and [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Weapons_Project Weapons Project]]) from ''The Boomsday Project'' are all cheap spells that give something to both players, related to their respective class's strengths. Likewise, the vendors from ''Madness at the Darkmoon Faire'' ([[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Armor_Vendor Armor Vendor]], [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Prize_Vendor Prize Vendor]], [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Banana_Vendor Banana Vendor]], and [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Knife_Vendor Knife Vendor]]) are neutral minions with symmetrical Battlecries.
* TacticalRockPaperScissors:
** Your deck will most likely be this: strong versus certain opponents and weak against others. A basic example would be the Aggro - Midrange/Tempo - Control deck. Aggro would beat Midrange before they can get their key cards, Control could not keep up against the Tempo of Midrange decks, and Aggro would not be able to penetrate Control's defense.
** Naturally, the metagame changes so there will be a different case of Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors every time. And of course, depending on the decks and player skill levels in question, [[ScissorsCutsRock decks can potentially beat decks intended to counter them]].
* TacticalSuicideBoss: Loatheb in the ''Naxxramas'' expansion. [[DamageSpongeBoss He begins the fight with 75hp]] (in contrast to the standard 30), but the unique spell cards he uses create spores that, when defeated, give your minions +8 attack.
* TacticalWithdrawal: Can be done with the battlecry effects of '''Youthful Brewmaster''' or '''Ancient Brewmaster''', which sends an allied minion back to its owner's hand. One can make a strategy out of getting double use out of battlecry minions by summoning, withdrawing, then summoning again (or just to recall wounded powerhouses then re-summon at full health). Rogue also has a few cards that do the same, with one of them, Vanish, even causing minions to return en masse.
** The Shaman "Reincarnation" spell works in a similar fashion, but ''destroys'' the target and then resurrects it, which not only skips the need to summon it again, but also triggers Deathrattle effects.
* TalkLikeAPirate: The game acknowledges International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day by giving all characters special greeting emotes for the occasion. [[TheComicallySerious Well, except a few...]]
-->'''Gul'dan:''' Pirate's Day? I don't get it...\\
'''Khadgar:''' We celebrate... sea criminals today?\\
'''Rastakhan:''' When de king approves, it is called privateering.\\
'''Sylvanas:''' Shiver me - eh, whatever.
* TakeThat:
** The final tutorial quest is the first one to use all the rules and start the players off on even footing. The advice text tells you it's horribly unbalanced and you should blame the game designers. (Though ironically, your opponent does have some incredibly powerful creatures and cheap spells at his disposal, and [[spoiler:the decks are stacked so you'll get an easy victory if you keep your head. The lesson here is to learn how it's always possible to turn a game around.]])
** The common Loot Hoarder card is a general TakeThat toward the more greedy players of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', specifically the line, "Mind if I roll 'Need'?" (A common way to hog loot used to be to click "Need" rather than "Greed" every time an item dropped, even if one didn't really need it.)
** The flavor text of the card Cursed Blade: "The curse is that you have to listen to '[[Music/{{Hanson}} MMMBop]]' on repeat."
* TakeUpMySword: Tirion Fordring, the Paladin-exclusive legendary minion, does this to Uther when he finally dies by passing on his Ashbringer, a potent 5/3 weapon.
* TakingYouWithMe: Rarely, it is possible for games to end on a tie; but the only way to do so is to do something that kills both the enemy hero AND your own. This usually happens because one player cannot win, but can prevent the opponent from taking the victory. The game displays both hero frames exploding (signifying a loss); however, it does not actually count as a loss. For instance, should you end on a tie on an Arena run, it will not increase your loss count, nor your win count.
** Perhaps the most spectacular way to accomplish this is to somehow acquire the Druid spell Tree of Life (restore ''all'' characters' HP to full) as a Priest and playing it while Auchenai Soulpriest (turn all your healing effects to damage) is under your control. The result is the ''simultaneous implosion of every single minion and hero''.
** There are also minions whose deathrattles may end up taking out a few other minions (and/or a hero) down, such as [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Abomination Abomination]] and [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Obsidian_Statue Obsidian Statue]]. Mecha'tun has one of the more interesting case of TakingYouWithMe: If he is killed when his owner has nothing left in deck, hand and field, he instantly ''kills the enemy hero''.
* TemptingFate: A big part of the fun in watching Streamers. Its best not to act cocky when things are going go your way, for fear of drawing the [=RNG's=] ire. So you got a board of four 8/8s, whose Deathrattle summons two more 8/8s each. [[https://youtu.be/pBBZAkSwOwI?t=3m20s What could possibly go wrong?]]
* ThanatosGambit: Deathrattle minions trigger their effect when they die - as such, it is sometimes beneficial to lose your minions. Go through the trouble of slaying the opposing Paladin's Tirion Fordring? The Ashbringer that Uther gets might be what he was really after all along. This is especially true when someone plays Baron Rivendare (which doubles all your Deathrattle triggers) on their turn and start killing off all their Deathrattle minions to get huge advantages. Other cards gain attack power when a minion - any minion - dies, with often ludicrous results.
** One of the best examples is probably ''Sylvanas Windrunner'', a 6 mana 5/5 whose Deathrattle will possess a random enemy minion when she dies. Opponents who cannot silence her are usually forced to expend their minions rather inefficiently to prevent them from being taken away, [[BatmanGambit which is usually what her owner is counting on]].
** Another example are the various "egg" cards that were printed. They have 0 Attack and their Deathrattle summons a minion with much better stats for their cost. If they kill it too early, the opponent needs to deal with the minion that it summons. If they leave it alone, it gives the opponent a chance to buff them.
** When Deathrattle trigger effects are involved, the gambit becomes even more risky. Using the above example, do you want to risk leaving that egg alive so they can play [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Play_Dead Play Dead]] or [[https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Necrium_Vial Necrium Vial]] to double or ''triple'' its Deathrattle ''without'' killing the minion, or do you kill it immediately and just deal with whatever minion it spawns right now instead of maybe making things worse the next turn?
* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Several of the weekly Tavern Brawls will make a given minion or class considerably more powerful/useful than normal. The trope also applies to "tech" cards.[[note]]cards chosen to play specifically against certain opponents and deck types.[[/note]]
** The Spiders Everywhere brawl made sure the only minions players had were beasts, making Tundra Rhino (which gives all your beasts [[ActionInitiative charge]]) one of the most useful minions around.
** Likewise a Too Many Portals brawl (which replaced all minions with Unstable Portal) made the Sorcerer's Apprentice's ability to reduce cost of all spells incredibly powerful.
** While the Double Deathrattle Battler (which double the effect of every Deathrattle) understandably saw a massive increase of minions with Deathrattle, a surprisingly useful card to have in this Brawl is ''Lil' Exorcist'' - a Neutral 2/3 for Taunt that has her stats increase by 1/1 for every Deathrattle minion your opponent controls, as it forces your opponent to trade into her with their Deathrattle minions and potentially save you if they have lethal.
** Not a specific card, but the chat feature became extremely useful in the Brawl United Against Mechazod! as it allows both players to cooperate and know which card to play to get maximum benefit. Of course, this particular brawl also makes cards that benefit the opponent, such as Millhouse Manastorm and Lorewalker Cho, extra useful for helping your partner out.
** When it comes to specific cards, some cards may have unintended consequences. For example, Bolf Ramshield from ''The Grand Tournament'' is considered a very bad card. Poor stats for its 6 mana cost, plus it takes damage if your hero is attacked (making him a glorified 0/9 Taunt in most cases), but does not deal damage to minions that attack you directly. However, come ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', it turns out that Bolf's unique ability allows him to [[HeroicSacrifice eat an entire C'Thun battlecry of any arbitrary size]], leaving the hero unscathed. While you do lose your board, it does give you a turn to remove C'Thun.
** The "Top 2" Tavern Brawl[[note]]Players chose two cards and got a deck filled with fifteen of each[[/note]] saw a massive influx of Mech Decks, all consisting of Mech Warper (reduces the cost of all mechs in your hand by one) and another mech card. As early as turn two could see players with nearly full boards of minions they summoned for free.
** Hungry Crab and Golakka Crawler both are cheap creatures designed to kill very specific targets (Murlocs and Pirates respectively), and so will see play depending on the prevalence of either minion type, both in and out of Tavern Brawl.
** Several cards are so situational that it would be considered madness to even put them in a constructed deck. However, if picked up through the Discover mechanic, there's the possibility that they were discovered in the exact situation where they would shine the most.
** The Miniature Warfare Brawl makes several expensive minions that normally don't see much use, such as Northsea Kraken, into powerhouses. A shining example is Alexstrasza; while her effect of setting someone's health to 15 isn't bad per se, she often gets sidelined in normal games. Here, she can be dropped on turn 1, immediately halving the enemy's health from the get go.
** Nightmare Amalgam is a 3-mana 3/4 with the quirk of being treated as all minion types. It didn't make much of a splash in constructed play since it debuted at a time where tribe synergies and minions with no real effect didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, and the only real use it saw was as a beefy early-game murloc or elemental. However, Battlegrounds is all about tribe-specific buffs, which made Nightmare Amalgam the heart of more Battlegrounds strategies than any other card since it benefits from ''all of them''. And to top it all off, it's the ''only'' dragon in the game for Zoobot or Menagerie Wizard to buff. Nightmare Amalgam warped the game to the point of ComplacentGamingSyndrome and Blizzard decided to completely remove it from the game[[note]]with The Curator's having the game's only amalgam[[/note]].
** Sacrificial Pact is a 0-cost card that kills a demon to heal for 5. It has long been deemed too clunky to use for healing and too situational to be a tech card. It couldn't compete with other healing cards that didn't require sacrificing tempo, and there were a very limited number of enemy demons to be worth using on, and that's ''if'' you manage to run into a Demon Warlock deck. While the card did start to see some play in Galakrond Warlock, which vomited more than enough 1/1 Imps to sacrifice, when Demon Hunters arrived and absolutely trashed the meta, Sacrificial Pact suddenly became the best anti-meta tech card to play, so much so that ''every single Warlock deck'' ran Sacrificial Pact ''just'' to counter Demon Hunters. It got nerfed to target only friendly demons not long after.
* ThoseTwoGuys: George and Karl, two Silver Hand Recruits that gets mentioned in the flavor text for Lost in the Jungle and Vinecleaver from ''Journey to Un'goro'' as a RunningGag. Then in Dungeon Run the two would show up as a boss encounter. In the Year of the Dragon, the two get separated and George joins the League of E.V.I.L. to avenge Karl's death, only for the following expansion to show Karl just got lost in Ul'dum. By the end of the storyline, the two reunite with each other.
* TimeLimitBoss:
** The Crone on Heroic Mode in ''One Night in Karazhan''. After turn 8, she'll draw and play a Twisting Nether every single turn, eventually letting her kill you with her Hero Power.
** A. F. Kay from the Dungeon Run. She starts by doing nothing for six turns, [[spoiler:but realises she's in a fight then plays Boots of Haste and fills the board with 8/8 minions. If she's not dead by that point, '''you''' will be.]]
** Certain deck archetypes aiming for one-turn-kills are basically this. Some of the notorious ones are Shudderwock Shaman from Witchwood and Mecha'thun from Boomsday. Unless you can throw [[SpannerInTheWorks a wrench in their plans]], your chance for winning is limited by how fast they can get their key cards and complete their win condition.
* TournamentArc:
** ''The Grand Tournament'' is set in a colossal tournament where all are invited to compete.
** ''Rastakhan's Rumble'' is built around a tournament between trolls, and its Rumble Run solo adventure is focused around leading a rookie troll combatant to glory in the ring.
* TrashTalk: Rather than allow direct chat between players, Blizzard limits in-match communication to a set of six emotes [[note]]Unless your opponent is on your friend list, of course[[/note]]. Players have developed a complex and nuanced language out of these emotes, managing to display frustration, sarcasm, and appreciation depending on the circumstances. If you don't want any of it, you can squelch your opponent.
* {{Troll}}:
** The ''Annoy-o-Tron'' card, a 1/2 mech with Taunt and Divine Shield to stop any offensive, with a red afro, flashing lights for eyes, and bells, repeatedly chanting ''Hello! Hello! Hello!''
** ''Hecklebot'', notable for having 18 different taunting voicelines as it is played or attacls. Its flavor text even says "Built by goblins, designed by trolls."
* TurnsRed:
** Enrage minions[[note]]A retired keyword, but still informally referred to as such[[/note]] will trigger their effect while damaged, and this effect can be anything from massively increased damage to attacking twice a turn, making it prudent to finish them in one hit or at least minimize the damage they can do. Healing them to full again makes them calm down, though. A few cards have other similar gimmicks related to taking damage, and this can get out of control very quickly, for example, letting Frothing Berserker or Gurubashi Berserker alive for too long after they start taking damage can end the game fast. Appropriately enough, enraged minions have a red aura over their card art.
** The Warrior can invoke this himself with Mortal Strike, which deals more damage if his health is low.
** ''Forged in the Barrens'' introduced the Frenzy keyword, which activates when the minion survive taking damage the first time.
* UniquenessRule:
** Most cards can be run at 2 copies, but you can only use one copy of each Legendary, which makes drawing them less consistent.
** You can play as many cards as you can afford. In contrast, your Hero Power can only be used once per turn. This serves to make it less spammable, as it's always available.
** "[[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Highlander Highlander]]" cards have extremely powerful effects but have the restriction where your deck cannot contain any duplicates when they're played. Normally this restricts them to a no-duplicate deck. However, you can play a deck that expects to draw all of its cards very quickly, letting you activate the cards after all of your duplicates have been drawn.
** The Duels game mode starts players with a 16-card deck, with no duplicates allowed in deckbuilding at all. Inverted with the bucket system, where you can pick 3 more cards to add to your deck after every game. Not only can buckets include duplicates, it can break the normal 2 card limit and the 1 Legendary limit, letting you have any number of a specific card if you're lucky.
* UnpredictableResults: There are a ''lot'' of cards utilising random effects with such a wide variance of possible options that they're completely and utterly unpredictable. Even the popular [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Piloted_Shredder Piloted Shredder]] can alternately summon a [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Millhouse_Manastorm Millhouse Manastorm]] when it dies (very good for its owner), a [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Darnassus_Aspirant Darnassus Aspirant]] (''terrible'' for its owner since you suffer the Deathrattle without benefiting from the Battlecry) or a [[http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Doomsayer Doomsayer]] (potentially catastrophic for ''either'' player depending on who has more to lose). Whether or not this constitutes good design or a balance nightmare is [[BrokenBase an issue of great contention among the player base]].
* UnskilledButStrong:
** Patchwerk, one of the Naxxramas bosses, doesn't have any cards. That said, it can easily take you out in six turns because of its sheer power: a weapon that never runs out of charges (its deathrattle returns it to the boss's hand) and a hero power that destroys any minion. This extends to his Battlegrounds hero incarnation, where his Hero Power is just a passive max Health bonus.
** The Ogre-type cards in the [=GvG=] expansion are powerful for their mana costs, but have a 50% chance of hitting the ''wrong'' target when they attack.
* UnsportsmanlikeGloating: Despite only having the emote system for communication, GIFT is still in full effect and some people will spam emotes constantly, or just use emotes inappropriately, or just make unnecessary or pointless plays (like sacrificing minions without killing anything, or wasting spells that do little to nothing) before actually killing the opponent, just because they can.
* VanillaUnit:
** There are plenty of minions with no rules text, no rules text besides a keyword, or no rules text besides a Battlecry (an ability that triggers when the minion is played from your hand).
** The Giant archetype consists of big, expensive minions whose only ability is a cost reduction ability. While you have to exploit the cost reduction to make them worth playing (some of the costs exceed 10 mana, the maximum number of mana crystals, making the ability mandatory to play them at all), once they hit the field, they're essentially vanillas.
* VictoryByEndurance: The goal of Mill decks is to exhaust the enemy's deck and watch them die from Fatigue. In ''Dungeon Run'' mode, cards fitting said archetype is fittingly labeled as 'Exhaustion'. Can also be done by extreme StoneWall tactics, healing yourself and refilling your deck as your enemy slowly exhausts theirs and succumb to Fatigue. Dead Man's Hand Warrior is pretty much the epitome of this tactic; the deck has no direct damage at all, but it can repeatedly shuffle armor-giving and board-clearing cards into the deck to destroy the opponent's minions repeatedly and gain armor faster than the enemy can wear it down.
* VillainEpisode:
** ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', an entire expansion based around the theoretical awakening of C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, N'Zoth, and Y'Shaarj as they attempt to conquer and corrupt Azeroth.
** ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'', which followed three notorious crime leaders in a gang war for control of the city.
** ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'', a WhatIf scenario where The Lich King succeeded in destroying Azeroth and corrupting its best heroes into Death Knights.
** ''Rise of Shadows'', a VillainTeamUp of all of Hearthstone's OriginalGeneration villains attempting to rob the city of Dalaran.
* VillainSong: Some of the trailers for certain expansions/updates feature songs sung by villains to indulge in their evilness:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKjUgLrDEbI The trailer]] for ''Whispers of the Old Gods'' is accompanied by one of the Old Gods' servants, Madam Lazul, singing about their wickedness and how hopeless it is to resist them. The Old Gods get another one with ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQjG-ffwTek Madness at the Darkmoon Faire]]'', a [[CreepyCircusMusic spooky music box melody]] about how much of an absolute nightmare [[CircusOfFear the Darkmoon Faire]] really is.
** ''Rise of Shadows''' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRV4nooto6A trailer]] has Rafaam singing his evil plan to other villains gathered, regarding his plan to take Dalaran for all that its got.
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58KHn4H6F5Q Trial by Felfire]]'' features Mecha-Jaraxxus and his Rusted Legion boasting of how invincible and indomitable he and his forces are, and how they'll conquer Outland, all set to a heavy metal-inspired composition.
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OflnVhFRKJs Mercenaries]]'' features Lady Katrana Prestor and Kazakus singing a duet about their scheme to conquer Azeroth - by enlisting a group of mercenaries to do their dirty work.
** The ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zld2eXWcOM Deadmines]]'' mini-set presents Mr. Smite and the Defias gang singing a shanty about how scary and greedy they are, with Edwin [=VanCleef=] himself joining near the end and making threats towards his crew.
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc6ptCEMSCg Onyxia's Lair]]'' features Lady Prestor gleefully boasting to the mercenaries about how she [[UnwittingPawn compltely played all of them]] as she takes on her true form.
* ViralUnlockable: The Blood of Hakkar cardback, which is unlocked by playing against someone who currently has it equipped. It automatically equips afterwards, meaning you'll also spread the virus (unless you switch to something else before playing again).
* TheVirus: ''Infectious Sporeling'' from ''Ashes of Outland'' expansion provides a twist to the [[OneHitKill Poisonous]] mechanic. If this minion damages a target, the target turns into another ''Infectious Sporeling''. And the target can spread the infection further. Even the flavor text references [[Film/TheMatrixReloaded Agent Smith's]] famous line:
-->--''The best thing about being me—there’s so many 'me's''
* WeakButSkilled:
** Some low-cost minions are nothing special in terms of stats, but have useful effects or have the [[MagikarpPower potential to grow stronger]]- the challenge is keeping them alive long enough to be useful. For example, Alarm-o-Bot is a weak 0/3 for 3 mana minion, but it can potentially bring '''Deathwing''' straight to the field as early as turn 3, bypassing its detrimental Battlecry as well.
** Al'Akir the Windlord, the Shaman legendary minion, can be considered to be this. It has 3/5 stats for 8 mana, which is beyond weak for its cost. However, it also has Windfury, Taunt, Divine Shield, ''and'' Charge properties, making it have the most effects of a single minion in the game.
** [[TheCartel Kabal]] Legendaries from ''Mean Streets of Gadgetzan'' combine poor stats for their cost with extreme effects when their activation condition is fulfilled.
** Zilliax is a 3/2 for 5 mana, but has a fearsome combination of Lifesteal, Divine Shield, Taunt, and Rush. Him being Magnetic also lets him bestow all these abilities to an adjacent Mech.
** The various Lackey cards introduced in ''Rise of E.V.I.L.'' are 1-mana 1/1 minions. Definitely weak, but they come with various effects that can absolutely give your opponent a bad time. Or [[HoistByHisOwnPetard alternatively, you]], if the Faceless Lackey gives you a Doomsayer.
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: Victory is decided based on whose main hero character reaches zero health first, regardless of what's on the rest of the board. A player can utterly dominate the field with a wall of minions that could steamroll the opponent next turn, but it's all moot if the other player finishes them off with a spell or hero power before that happens.
* WelcomeBackTraitor: The Priest spell Shadow Madness takes control of a 3 attack or less minion until the end of the current turn. If it actually survives, it will go back to its original owner.
* WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong: Related to TemptingFate above; some minions have detrimental Battlecry or Deathrattle, or one that the enemy can capitalize ''extensively''. The biggest of this is ''Millhouse Manastorm'', a 4/4 for 2 mana is overstatted, but his Battlecry allows your enemy to cast all spells for free next turn. [[https://youtu.be/jSB6YOZ5P_o?t=74 It's only Turn 2, what can possibly go wrong by playing Millhouse against a Hunter?]]
-->'''Thijs:''' Sometimes you gotta show balls, guys. It's only Flanking Strike, well it's not very... [[spoiler:[[OhCrap IT'S SPELL HUNTER!]]]]
* WhenTreesAttack: Malfurion has a few cards like this. He has a trio of huge Ancient minions that act as his exclusive heavy-hitters, and he can summon smaller Treants with a spell (either instantly or by giving his minions a Deathrattle) or with Cenarius' Battlecry effect.
* WhyWontYouDie:
** A category of Minions nicknamed 'Sticky' have Deathrattle effects that immediately summons another minion of equal or weaker strength, notably the neutral common card '''Harvest Golem''', the Hunter-specific '''Savannah Highmane''' and the neutral legendary '''Cairne Bloodhoof'''. This is a useful property, as it forces an opponent to either silence it or expend more cards/mana to take it out than normal.
** This effect can be achieved through other means, such as the Paladin secret Redemption which will resurrect a destroyed minion with 1 HP left, making it more of a hassle to deal with. And then there's Priests, whose healing powers and cards can make killing a high-health minion take ridiculously long if you can't reduce its HP to 0 in one turn. There is also Shaman's Ancestral Spirit, which is a bit like Paladin's Redemption except that it resurrects a killed minion with full health.
** Gothik The Harvester of Naxxramas summons minions that, when defeated, summons a minion without attack on your side of the field, each of these nigh-useless minions damages their owner for one health each turn. Taking up space and, because they're on your side, make them extremely difficult to get rid of for good.
** Particularly frustrating and difficult with the Legendary minion '''Kel'thuzad''', which resummons at the end of every turn all friendly minions that died that turn. Yes, ''every'' turn, including your opponent's.
** The ''Goblins vs Gnomes'' expansion added three more, although unlike the other examples they spawn a random minion rather than a specific one. '''Piloted Shredder''' spawns a random 2 cost minion, '''Piloted Sky Golem''' spawns a random 4 cost, and '''Sneed's Old Shredder''' spawns ''a random Legendary'', which may include ''another copy of itself''! However, these minions typically cost more than the minions they spawn; Sneed's something of an exception, as there are other Legendary minions who cost 8 mana or more.
** Rattlegore is a 9/9 minion with a Deathrattle that resummons itself with -1/-1 stats. The first time he dies, he comes back as an 8/8. When he dies again, he's a 7/7, then a 6/6, and so on and so on until he dies as a 1/1.
** The Grand Tournament added Dreadsteed, which is the most extreme example of this trope in Hearthstone. Any time Dreadsteed is killed it returns to the field at the end of the turn.[[note]]Prior to August 2017, Dreadsteed's revival was immediate.[[/note]]
* WeirdBeard: Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is the most powerful of the [[EldritchAbomination Old Gods]], and it possesses 2 tentacles below its eyes which evoke the image of a mustache. Hilariously, it curls heavily, giving the image of a DastardlyWhiplash.
* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: Unlike most other card games, running out of cards in your deck will not instantly kill you, but rather every time you must draw cards, you will take incremental Fatigue damage, which will eventually do you in if the lack of new cards to play doesn't finish you off first. One can exploit this by somehow [[HoistByHisOwnPetard forcing an opponent to draw cards to kill them with Fatigue]] (by killing off all their minions while their Cult Master is in play, for instance) if it's not possible to just kill him directly.
* WolfpackBoss: The Four Horsemen are the boss of the Military Quarter. Even though only one of them is technically the enemy hero and has only 7 HP, the other 3 start as 1/7 minions on the field and make their hero immune as long as they are alive.
* WonderTwinPowers: The cards Feugen and Stalagg are 5 mana 4/7 and 7/4's respectively and aren't too amazing on their own. However if the other one already died, they summon the 11/11 Thaddius minion.
* WorkingOnTheChainGang: The Saronite Chain Gang, which shows a group of chained-up Draenei being forced to mine Saronite for the Scourge, and appropriately comes into play with a copy of itself.
-->''How loooong can this go on? (How loooong can this go on?)''
* WormInAnApple: Blood Witch Gretta from the ''The Witchwood'' is depicted holding an apple with worms sticking out from it and several of her lines are to get the player to eat the apple. Her hero power is Blood Red Apple, a passive ability that makes spells drain health instead of mana.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: In Ranked Play, players commonly underestimate their true ranking within their region. A player who is, say, Rank 13 in the region may expect to be better than 50% of all players, when really, based on the chart Blizzard provided[[http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/15955974/hearthside-chat-youre-better-than-you-think-9-18-2014]], they're really better than 80% of all players.
* YouBastard:
** So you cleared Heroic Naxxramas! Hooray! [[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vh7gPcW4_Ls/maxresdefault.jpg Hope you happy that you just beat up an old man-turned-into-Lich and his cat. Even the cat's wrapped in bandages!]]
** Invoked by the lead-up to ''Rise of Shadows'', with all of the villains left in shambles thanks to you. This is especially the case with [[AscendedExtra George]], whose partner Karl you killed for kind of no reason. Until ''Saviors of Uldum'' revealed that Karl just got lost... again.
* YouNoTakeCandle: The [[TropeNamer kobolds]] all invoke the trope upon being summoned. The Kobold Geomancer card even says this verbatim when summoned.
* YouWillBeAssimilated: The Rusted Legion's primary goal, as with the Burning Legion. Instead of merely converting races into demons, they embody the spirit of the trope name by converting them into demon ''cyborgs''.
* YourSoulIsMine: Gul'dan's intro phrase. Thematically, Mill Warlock is this, as they directly destroy or discard the enemy's hand or deck instead of forcing them to overdraw, symbolically destroying their oppponent's mind and soul.
* ZergRush: There are several cards that invoke this, and it's the basic strategy of a rush deck. Variants include:
** Murloc rush, with the buff abilities of some of them being reliant on either having multiple murlocs, or summoning multiple murlocs.
** Uther and Thrall, who summon low powered minions with their hero powers, can use this strategy too. The Odd Paladin archetype allows Uther to constantly churn out weenies, two at a time, with his hero power. The deck's main strategy is to simply throw wave after wave of Silver Hand Recruits, often augmented by various buffs, at the opponent until they run out of answers and fold under sheer weight of numbers.
** Onyxia's battlecry effect is to fill all remaining slots on your side of the board with 1/1 whelps.
** "Zoolock" decks embody this trope. The deck runs many low-cost minions and goes wide with them, and on top of the Warlock's strong early-game minions like Flame Imp and Voidwalker combined with some cheap buffs, It lets them overwhelm the opponent if they don't have any [=AoE=] spells to deal with them all.
** The Hunter card Unleash the Hounds, which summons a 1/1 Hound with Charge for each enemy minion on the field. Gaining 4 Hounds can lead to eliminating a 4-health threat by just quickly brute-forcing it. If this spell is cast while the Hunter has a Starving Buzzard in play, they also draw a card for every hound summoned, fueling this trope further!
** Druids accomplish this with Treants. They have a classic card that summons 3 2/2 Treants and another that makes their minions summon a Treant on death. Various expansions have added more Treant summoning spells, and one focus from The Boomsday Project was on Treant synergy.
[[/folder]]

!!2023 (Name Currently Unknown)

* Myth/TheScholomance: In quite the contrast to its home game, Hearthstone features this place as the setting of the Scholomance Academy set, where it is a quirky and lighthearted WizardingSchool very much in the style of [[Literature/HarryPotter Hogwarts]]. Headmaster Kel'Thuzad still trains necromancers in secret, however.

* DidntSeeThatComing: Happens a lot. The enemy deviates from the established meta and use widely considered poor cards such as ''[[KillEmAll 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. [[https://youtu.be/pcA7H7FU2Mo?t=360 Even pros are not immune to this.]]

* KillEmAll: ''Knight of the Frozen Throne'' is set in a timeline where every playable Basic Hero is defeated and resurrected as Death Knight, which are examplified by Hero Cards that gains 5 Armor and replace your current Hero Power with a new one.

** The overuse of RNG-based mechanics is actually the game's biggest criticism from people who don't like it and is a source of constant arguments about whether it's a good thing or not. Although ''all'' [=CCGs=] use an inherent amount of RNG by default, ''Hearthstone'' openly embraces randomness on a previously-unseen scale, with cards drawing from potentially ''dozens'' of possible effects, some of which can win or lose you an game in an instant (just ask anyone who ever saw a [[KillEmAll Doomsayer]] pop out of a Piloted Shredder).

* FictionalZodiac: The game uses a Zodiac symbol to designate each yearly rotation for Standard format. Each year is named after an animal (usually a fictional one from the ''Warcraft'' universe), and the animal typically has something to do with one of the expansions for that year. For example, the Year of the Kraken references the squid-like [[EldritchAbomination N'Zoth]] from ''Whispers of the Old Gods'', while the Year of the Raven calls to mind the GothicHorror setting of ''The Witchwood''.

* FinishingMove: Nearly all decks have some high-damage spell(s) or other instant damage to act as a finisher, such as the LeeroyJenkins minion. This is especially important for rush or aggro decks who need to beat an opponent's HP down then finish the match ASAP.

* AnAxeToGrind: Garrosh has the largest number of weapon cards, and most of them are axes.
** ''Whispers'' adds a Warrior card named Bloodhoof Brave (4 mana 2/6 taunt with +3 attack when damaged) who invokes the trope when summoned.

** The Death Knight class requires selecting three Runes with any deck they build, from a combination of Blood, Frost, and Unholy Rune. Many Death Knight cards have a Rune requirement, with more powerful cards requiring two or three of the same Rune.

* PromotedToPlayable: Illidan Stormrage was promoted from a crappy and hopelessly Power Creeped Classic Legendary to the base hero of the new Demon Hunter class. This promotion also lead to his original card incarnation to be replaced with Xavius, who is mechanically almost completely identical to the old Illidan[[note]]The 2/1 tokens he summons are Demons instead of Elementals.[[/note]].

*** Unstable Evolution is a spell that can be cast multiple times on the same turn. It's functionally identical to Echo, but doesn't have the keyword because Blizzard is very fussy about adding non-evergreen keywords outside of the set they were introduced in. Blizzard then later added the Echo keyword into Unstable Evolution because a new card, [[https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Radiance_of_Azshara Radiance of Azshara]], would otherside make its repeatable copies cost 0 mana.

* ''VideoGame/MarvelSnap'': There are a handful of characters with symmetrical effects, usually in the form of anti-meta tech cards.

* PromotedToPlayable: Illidan Stormrage was promoted from a crappy and hopelessly Power Creeped Classic Legendary to the base hero of the new Demon Hunter class. This promotion also lead to his original card incarnation to be replaced with Xavius, who is mechanically almost completely identical to the old Illidan[[note]]The 2/1 tokens he summons are Demons instead of being typeless.[[/note]].

*** Several Druid spells such as '''Wild Growth''' and '''Astral Communion''' only functions to give you mana crystals that you can use for your subsequent turns. Since you can only hold up to 10 mana crystals during the game, should you be left with these spells while having maximum mana, they give you '''Excess Mana''' card which draws you another card for free.

** You also get easy access to a basic deck for each hero, with a few more basic cards being unlocked as you level them to level 10. And you can't lose any of the basic cards so the option to try another hero is always there.

* ArtificialStupidity: The practice mode AI was never very challenging, but with the Curse of Naxxramas patch it became a lot more obvious that the Hearthstone AI… isn’t very smart. Examples include playing minions in the wrong order so that they don’t gain synergy which they would have otherwise had, making questionable trades, and in the case of Loatheb, [[WhatAnIdiot using a Faceless Manipulator to clone a Spore]]. The developers compensated for this by massively buffing the Naxxramas bosses and giving them overpowered cards that aren’t even available to players, which implies they’ve pretty much admitted defeat in getting the Hearthstone AI to anywhere near player level.

* AWinnerIsYou: As amazing as [[BestBossEver Mechazod]] is, many players have wished that he received a death sequence when you defeat him during the Tavern Brawl, rather than just going straight into the "Victory" screen. Later Tavern Brawls fixed this issue though, seeing the following co-op Tavern Brawl boss, Nefarian, dies in a spectacular fashion.

* BarrierWarrior: Uther can give his minions Divine Shield with a spell or an exclusive minion.

* {{BFS}}: Most of Uther's weapon cards. The Truesilver Champion heals him as he attacks, the Sword of Justice buffs minions he summons at the cost of durability, and the Ashbringer (equipped when Tirion Fordring dies) is just a really big, really tough sword. Old Gods introduced the Rallying Blade, which gives all Uther's minions with Divine Shield an extra +1/+1

** Basic cards for each class are usually not enough to make crazy strategies or decks from, but they are solid cost-efficient cards that you can always depend on. They're easy to make an effective deck with, even by beginners, but careful play by an expert can trump any number of fancy strategies. It's a commonly-cited fact that several of Hearthstone's top players have made it to Legend rank (the highest tier in ranked play) multiple times over using purely basic decks to prove a point. Unfortunately, PowerCreep eventually set in, making this much harder as time goes on and more cards that outperform their Basic counterparts are released.
** The Boulderfist Ogre and Chillwind Yeti, available for all players, have excellent stats for their costs and are difficult to get rid of but have no other effect. They are still considered two of the most cost-efficient minions in the game, often forcing your opponent to trade 2-for-1 or burn an expensive removal card to get rid of them.

** Some of the Neutral card-drawing cards, such as Loot Hoarder and Novice Engineer, may not be as amazing as some of the flashier card-drawing cards or combos (such as Hunter's Starving Buzzard + Unleash The Hound/Snake Trap combo, or Rogue's Sprint), but their cheap cost and relatively reliable self-replacing effects can do wonders in getting your actual game-winning cards to use later in the game.
** The Mage's ''Flamestrike'' is a basic card, meaning it's common and everyone has one. But it is ''the'' single most feared [[HerdHittingAttack Board Clear]] in the game, and the holy standard to judge others. A single application of this spell at the right moment can completely reverse the tempo of the game.

** 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''.

* GenerationXerox: If Cairne Bloodhoof gets killed, he's immediately replaced by his stat-identical son Baine. [[note]]Identical in all but mana cost; while Cairne costs 6, Baine in fact has the exact same stats as Chillwind Yeti, sitting at 4 mana.[[/note]]

* GoThroughMe: Taunt minions must be destroyed before you can attack cards without taunt or the enemy hero - with the exception of hero cards and spells, which make fair game of anything on the field.

** Late-game Paladin decks have a tendency to pull this off, recovering from early-game beatdowns with powerful healing effects from cards like '''Holy Light''' (2 mana for 6 health), '''Guardian of Kings''' (7 mana for a 5/6 creature that heals for 6), and '''Lay On Hands''' (8 mana for 8 health and 3 cards)

** The Hunter spell Hunter's Mark does this to one minion. Even if a Hunter has no minions to dispatch the marked minion, an easy follow-up is to use Unleash the Hounds to finish it off.

* AnIcePerson: Mages can use a number of ice-based spells that usually involve freezing opponents (preventing them from attacking for a turn). Mage decks built around freeze effects are extremely efficient at stalling out matches as they hit enemy face with spells. ''Knights of the Frozen Throne'' allowed Shamans to also create Freeze decks, where it's focused less on stalling and more on generating a lot of value through [[ViolationOfCommonSense freezing friendly minions too]].

* KeystoneArmy: Some decks are highly reliant on a single card as keystone of their strategy (for example, ''Archmage Antonidas'', ''Alextrasza'', some of the Death Knight Hero cards, etc. If you can somehow make them lose the card through discard or overdraw effects, there's a good chance that your opponent will concede there and then.

** In general, minions with similar attack/health value and possessing ''Charge'' and/or ''Windfury'' is this.

*** Some Battlegrounds heroes fall under this as well. For example, George the Fallen's Hero Power gives a minion Divine Shield for a whopping 3 Gold, but this heavy investment pays off very well in the late game. Mr. Bigglesworth is the most extreme version of this, where he basically has no Hero Power until someone else gets eliminated, where he can then Discover one of their minions, ''with'' any buffed stats and Golden status.

* MookCommander: Certain minions such as ''Stormwind Champion'' and ''Southsea Captain'' provide aura-type buff to other minions on the field. This can result in interesting interactions, such as Silencing the buffed minions does nothing, or a 1-health minion not losing health if pinged with only one damage.[[note]]A 1-health minion with a +1 health brings it to 2. Pinging it with 1 damage brings it back down to 1... except since it's an aura buff, it's always active, and since a minion cannot have 0 health, the buff is instantly re-applied, bringing its health back to 2.[/note]]

* OhCrap: The response of many a player once a legendary hits the field, or a seemingly innocuous card is buffed to high heaven.

** Happened again in Rise of Shadows. Convincing Infiltrator is a Faceless One [[PaperThinDisguise wearing a cloak and wooden mask]], who enters the battlefield saying "Greetings, fellow humans!" To make this even more ridiculous, Faceless Ones are ''shapeshifters''.

* PromotedToPlayable: Illidan Stormrage was promoted from a crappy and hopelessly Power Creeped Classic Legendary to the base hero of the new Demon Hunter class. This promotion also lead to his original card incarnation to be replaced with Xavius, who is mechanically completely identical to the old Illidan.

*** Or any combination of the above. Here's an example: On turn 4, Rogue plays Kobold Illusionist, triggers Deathrattle with Necrium Blade, summons a 1/1 Sliver Vanguard that was in their hand, Silver Vanguard dies and Recruits a 8-mana minion like Ragnaros or Lich King.

** Enrage minions will trigger their effect when damaged, and this effect can be anything from massively increased damage to attacking twice a turn, making it prudent to finish them in one hit or at least minimize the damage they can do. Healing them to full again makes them calm down, though. A few cards have other similar gimmicks related to taking damage, and this can get out of control very quickly, for example, letting Frothing Berserker or Gurubashi Berserker alive for too long after they start taking damage can end the game fast. Appropriately enough, enraged minions have a red aura over their card art.

* WonderTwinPowers: The cards Feugen and Stalagg are 5 mana 4/7 and 7/4's respectively and aren't too amazing on their own. However if they BOTH die, they summon the 11/11 Thaddius minion.

* YourSoulIsMine: Gul'Dan's intro phrase. Thematically, Mill Warlock is this, as they directly destroy or discard the enemy's hand or deck instead of forcing them to overdraw, symbolically destroying their oppponent's mind and soul.