Advanced rulebook

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While most rules in Hearthstone are fairly easy to ascertain, when several effects, each with their own behaviours, are brought into conflict, things can get a little more complicated. The advanced rulebook offers a comprehensive explanation of the game's underlying processes, complete with examples and video references.

  • For an in-depth reference to Hearthstone's internal program design, see Internal design.

Foreword[edit | edit source]

Because the advanced rulebook is written to document findings about how Hearthstone works, rather than the other way around, any given patch of Hearthstone may cause the advanced rulebook to have out-of-date information; Blizzard doesn't release a full changelog of bug/mechanic changes with each patch, and changes are often unintended. If you notice that something in the advanced rulebook is incorrect, please record what actually happens (such as by using https://obsproject.com/ ), upload the footage to Youtube and post a link on the talk page. Your contributions are always appreciated!

Keep in mind while reading this document that no interaction is hard-coded.[1]

Advanced mechanics 101 (READ THIS FIRST)[edit | edit source]

Sequences, Phases, Queues, Resolution[edit | edit source]

Definition: Player Actions are actions a player chooses to take on their turn while nothing is happening, such as attacking, playing a card, using your Hero Power and ending your turn.
Definition: A Sequence is what begins when a Player Action is taken. A Sequence consists of one or more Phases, that are resolved in order.
Definition: Phases are surrounding blocks created whenever one or more triggers/Events are raised. When the outermost Phase resolves, Hearthstone will run several Steps, including processing Deaths and updating Auras.
  • Hearthstone splits Turns into Sequences.
  • Player Actions (such as Combat, playing a card and ending the turn) form a Sequence of one or more Phases.

Examples

  • Sending a Character to attack another character creates a Sequence of two Phases - "Preparation" and "Attack".
  • Whenever a minion is summoned, a Sequence immediately begins with an "On Summon" and ends with an "After Summon" Phase.


Definition: An Event is any change in the game state. For example: Damage Event, Heal Event, Death Event, etc. (Additionally, all Phases have an associated Event(s).)
Definition: A Trigger is something that reacts to an Event, i.e. triggered effects, Secrets and Deathrattles.
Definition: Resolving means playing out all related consequences, one at a time.


Rule 1a: A Phase, trigger or Event is only resolved when all of its consequences are resolved.
Rule 1b: When resolving simultaneous events, Hearthstone must resolve one event before it begins resolving the next.
Rule 1c: Death is not checked during the standard resolution of Events.


The process of resolving an event is similar to a depth-first search - Imagine every circle being an event and every arrow representing a trigger starting a new event. The numbers on each circle are the order Hearthstone would resolve them in.
  • When multiple events are awaiting resolution, the need to resolve an event before starting the next is a depth-first resolution. (If multiple events could be partially resolved, that would be breadth-first).
  • The moment a new trigger/Event is raised, Hearthstone begins to resolve it and immediately begins exploring its consequences, before resolving those remaining for the current trigger/Event. When a trigger/Event is resolved, Hearthstone picks up where it left off.
  • It seems that a trigger cannot be nested inside itself. Instead it works the skipped times as a compensation after all other consequences of it are resolved. See Trigger Re-entrancy Exploration.
  • If a player concedes in a Swedish style bracket, the result is .5 - .5 in player score.

Examples

  • You  Flamestrike a  Dragon Egg and  Knife Juggler. The Dragon Egg immediately spawns a  Black Whelp, causing the Knife Juggler to trigger and throw a knife (even though both are mortally wounded, because death is not checked during resolution). There are no further consequences, so the phase is resolved. Hearthstone kills both minions, removing them from the board.[2]
  • Here is an example with  Knife Juggler and  Grim Patron[3]
  • Here are three more examples of deeply nested triggers during the playing of a minion.[4][5][6] Here is an example of deeply nested triggers during Death resolution.[7] Here is a very complicated series of triggers as a result of playing  Feign Death in The Masked Ball.[8]


Definition: A Queue is a sequential container where multiple simultaneous triggers or Events are held.
Rule 2a: When we start to resolve a Phase or Event, A Queue is created and filled with all triggers that can respond, in order of play.
Rule 2b: If multiple events are considered simultaneously (such as damage, healing, Deaths or 'return to hand' effects) they are Queued by order of play, then for each, triggers are Queued by order of play (as per Rule 2a).
Rule 2c: A Queue becomes immutable once Hearthstone starts to resolve the first entry in it. No new entries can be added to the Queue after this point.
  • Order of play means the order the Entities each Event/trigger is associated with entered play, from oldest to newest.
  • Minions, Heroes, Weapons, Locations, Permanents, Dormants, Hero zone cards, attached Enchantments and added Deathrattles are all Entities, and all exist in the same order of play list together.
  • Minions and Hero zone cards summoned while resolving an Event cannot respond to Events that are in the middle of resolution, because their associated Queues are now immutable. However, they can Queue on any later Phases and Events created.
  • After Patch 9.2.0.21517, triggers in a Sequence that read 'After ...' can only work if they're valid when the Sequence starts.[9]
  • After Patch 9.2.0.21517, consequences of Death can only work if their position and controller are valid before Death Creation Step.

Examples:

Notes and exceptions:

  • Some triggers have a Priority that supersedes order of play and always triggers earlier or later. One example is  Redemption which always Queues last.


Rule 3: Once a Phase begins, nested Phases with their own Queues may start and end inside of it, but only the outermost Phase ending initiates the Death Creation Step.


  • This means that you will NEVER see an Entity be killed in the middle of a Phase, no matter how complexly nested it becomes.
  • This also means that even though Sequences like summoning a minion have many Phases, if it occurs as a consequence of another Player Action instead of being due to playing a card, the entire thing happens before any Deaths occur.

Examples:

  • You play  Knife Juggler then  Dr. Boom. When Dr. Boom's Battlecry (a Phase) begins, Boom Bots are summoned, and each one triggers the Knife Juggler to throw knives at enemy minions. Even though minion summoning is a Sequence of multiple Phases, we are already inside of a Phase, so the entire Battlecry remains inside of one Phase, rather than starting and stopping. Finally when the Battlecry resolves, Deaths are processed and the Deathrattles go off.[11]
  • You play three Unstable Ghouls. Your opponent plays an  Acolyte of Pain, damages it to 1 Health and casts  Flamestrike. All three Unstable Ghouls's Deaths are considered in one Phase, meaning that the Acolyte of Pain is hit, triggered and draws three cards, despite being mortally wounded after the first Deathrattle. Finally the Phase ends and the Acolyte of Pain is killed.[12]
  • Your opponent has a  Cult Master and  Novice Engineer both at 1 Health. You play a  Mad Bomber, and both are reduced to 0 Health during the Battlecry Phase. Regardless of order of play, and regardless of the order the minions are mortally wounded by the bombs, the Cult Master cannot draw a card from the  Novice Engineer dying because both deaths occur simultaneously after the Phase ends.[13]

Exceptions:

  • There are some effects in the game that break this rule and kill minions in the middle of a Phase. For more information, see the Forced Death Phase section.


Rule 4a: After the outermost Phase ends, Hearthstone does an Aura Update (Health/Attack), then does the Death Creation Step (Looks for all mortally wounded (0 or less Health)/pending destroy (hit with a destroy effect) Entities and kills them, removing them from play simultaneously), then does an Aura Update (Other). Entities that have been removed from play cannot trigger, be triggered, or emit auras, and do not take up space.
Rule 4b: Besides, whenever a minion is summoned (but not played), Hearthstone updates both kinds of Auras.
Rule 4c: Some Auras that are known to update in Aura Update (Other), such as:  Baron Rivendare,  Auchenai Soulpriest,  Brann Bronzebeard,  Mal'Ganis's Immune effect,  Prophet Velen,  Violet Illusionist,  Drakkari Enchanter,  The Four Horsemen.
Rule 4d: Enchantments apply and modify Health/Attack/Mana costs the moment they are attached. However, during Aura Update (Health/Attack), the Enchantment List is re-processed and Health/Attack Auras, having a priority later than Health/Attack Enchantments, will be moved to the end of the Enchantment List during this timing. (However, Mana Cost Auras have no special priority compared to Mana Cost Enchantments.)
  • When a minion is played, its Aura is sent for the first time before the Battlecry Phase. When a minion is stolen, it does not start emitting its aura until the outermost Phase ends, unless a new minion is summoned.[14]
  • Until the moment it is removed from play, the Entity can be brought back from 0 or less Health by healing or Health buffs, and still shares auras. This is important when multiple minions are attacked simultaneously, or when a hero dies in the same Sequence as minions with Deathrattles.
  • If you kill a minion with an aura and a minion with a Deathrattle simultaneously, non-Health effects of the aura are not active during the following Death Phase because the minion is removed from play. However, Health effects of the aura will be active, because Hearthstone does not recalculate Health changes after the minions are killed, unless a new minion is summoned.[15][16][17] However, a health-granting aura such as  Mal'Ganis can save a minion from dying, even if it enters play the same Phase the other minion was mortally wounded, because the aura recalculation is done before the Death Creation Step.[18]
  • Auras are not recalculated due to minions leaving play or due to minions being stolen in the middle of a Phase.。[19]
  • Cards that trigger effects multiple times, like  Brann Bronzebeard,  Baron Rivendare and  Drakkari Enchanter, check before an Event starts. This means if one Battlecry/Deathrattle/End of turn effect summons them, it will not trigger again. But Deathrattles/End of turn effects that follow can benefit, for Aura (Other) is updated when you summon them.
  • Despite not visually updating, enchantments take effect the moment they are created.[20]

Examples:

  • You play a  Stormwind Champion,  Explosive Sheep and  Mana Wyrm. You damage the Champion and Sheep to 1 Health, with the Mana Wyrm at 4 Health (current and maximum). You play  Cone of Cold, simultaneously killing and removing from play the Champion and Sheep. Because only non-Health effects of auras are recalculated after the Death Creation Step, in the following Death Phase, the Mana Wyrm goes from 4 Health to 2, not 3 to 1, and ends as an x/2 instead of an x/1.[21]
  • You play an  Auchenai Soulpriest and a  Zombie Chow, damage the  Auchenai Soulpriest to x/4 and then cast  Circle of Healing. After the Spell Text Phase ends, both the Soulpriest and Zombie Chow are killed and removed from play. Because non-Health effects of auras end following the Death Creation Step, the Zombie Chow heals your opponent for 5, instead of damaging them for 5.
  • You have a  Cult Master and a  Bloodfen Raptor. Your opponent plays  Flamestrike. The Phase in which the spell is cast resolves, and both minions are killed simultaneously. The Cult Master cannot trigger on the Bloodfen Raptor's Death because it is removed from play at the same time.[22]
  • Your hero is at 2 Health and attacks a  Zombie Chow with his  Fiery War Axe. You and the Zombie Chow die and are removed from play - it is too late for the Zombie Chow's Deathrattle to save you, and you lose the game. Similarly, if you suicide into an  Abomination, the Deathrattle of which kills a  Zombie Chow, you are already dead and gain no healing.[23]
  • Your hero is at 5 Health. You cast  Hellfire against an enemy  Leper Gnome and  Zombie Chow. Both enemy minions die simultaneously, and regardless of order of play, you are hurt for 2 Health and healed for 5 Health, ending at 5 Health once more before Hearthstone checks for new Deaths.[24]
  • You play an  Abomination and  Mal'Ganis (order irrelevant), weaken both to 3 Health and cast  Hellfire. The Hellfire does not damage you, but mortally wounds both minions. After the Spell Text Phase ends, both minions are removed from play and you stop being Immune, so when the Abomination's Deathrattle goes off you take 2 damage.[25]
  • You have a  Stormwind Champion and a damaged 5/1 minion and  Redemption is in play. Your opponent casts  Fireball on your Stormwind Champion, reducing it to 0 Health. Because we run Aura Update (Health/Attack) before the Death Creation Step, Stormwind Champion's aura is still in effect during the following Death Phase, where Redemption triggers and summons a new 6/1 Stormwind Champion. In the next Aura Update (Health/Attack) the 5/1 minion remains a 5/1 minion because as far as Hearthstone is concerned, the aura never left or got added again. (If there was a timer at which the aura was found to be missing, it would have been dropped to a 4/1, then buffed to a 5/2.)[26]
  • You have two Auchenai Soulpriests and play a  Zombie Chow, a  Moat Lurker targeting one Auchenai, another Zombie Chow, then use AoE to clear your board. First all minions left play, then first Zombie's deathrattle restores 5 health for enemy hero. Then an Auchenai is summoned causing Aura Update. So the second Zombie deals 5 damage to enemy hero.[27]
  • Your opponent has  Sylvanas Windrunner and casts  Ancestral Spirit on it. You play  Baron Rivendare and Sylvanas then exchange Sylvanas. Enemy Sylvanas steals your Rivendare, and Ancestral Spirit summons Sylvanas causing Aura Update. Then another Sylvanas is summoned and your Sylvanas's deathrattle can only steal one enemy minion.[28]
  • You play  Krul the Unshackled to summon Demon I,  Unlicensed Apothecary, Demon II,  Mal'Ganis and Demon III (in this order) from hand. Your hero only takes 5 damage for Demon II.
  • You have  The Four Horsemen, 3 of the Horsemen and an oldest  Sylvanas Windrunner. Your opponent has another Horseman and a newest Sylvanas. You trade your Sylvanas into your opponent's. Due to the lack of Aura Update (Other), controlling all 4 Horsemen momentarily won't have you win the game.[29]



Rule 5: While characters cannot be killed in the middle of a Phase, 'negative' (damaging/destroying/hindering/misdirecting) triggers ignore mortally wounded and pending destroy characters. Also, Secrets abort if their specific target is mortally wounded, pending destroy or they otherwise cannot meaningfully trigger. However, 'beneficial' (healing/buffing) triggers count mortally wounded, and AoE effects count mortally wounded.
Rule 5b: For the purposes of 'if it survives'/'if that kills it' effects, mortally wounded and pending destroy Characters are considered to not have survived/to have been killed, even though they are (for now) still in play. If the target is in the Graveyard, it is also considered to have been killed.


  •  Knife Juggler is an example of a negative trigger that ignores mortally wounded and pending destroy characters. If all targets are mortally wounded or pending destroy, it aborts.
  •  Freezing Trap is an example of a Secret that aborts if its target is mortally wounded or pending destroy. Similarly,  Noble Sacrifice aborts if there is no space for the  Defender it would summon, and thus no way to trigger.
  •  Dark Cultist's Deathrattle is an example of a positive trigger that considers mortally wounded characters valid!
  •  Grim Patron,  Slam and  Blood To Ichor's conditions are only true if the relevant minion is not mortally wounded or pending destroy, such as due to  Acidmaw. (Conversely,  Mortal Coil and  Bane of Doom's conditions are true if the relevant minion is mortally wounded or pending destroy.)

Examples:

  • If you play two Knife Jugglers and then  Unleash the Hounds, no enemy will be reduced to lower than 0 Health by a knife, because Knife Juggler is a damaging trigger.
  • If you play  Explosive Trap then  Freezing Trap, your enemy's  Novice Engineer attacking into it will trigger the Explosive Trap and be reduced to -1 Health. The Freezing Trap is a hindering Secret and thus aborts having no target it considers valid.[30]
  •  Misdirection and Forgetful effects like  Ogre Brute, being hindering triggers, pretend mortally wounded characters don't exist and can't redirect an attack onto one.
  • If you play an  Explosive Sheep,  Dark Cultist and  Chillwind Yeti and your opponent plays  Flamestrike - First, the Explosive Sheep and Dark Cultist's Deaths are resolved in a single Phase. First, the Explosive Sheep goes off and mortally wounds the remaining Chillwind Yeti - but the Dark Cultist doesn't ignore mortally wounded characters, and the Chillwind Yeti is buffed and survives as a 4/2.
  • If you play an  Auchenai Soulpriest,  Acolyte of Pain buffed to 1/5 and two Unstable Ghouls, then play  Circle of Healing (killing both Unstable Ghouls and reducing the Acolyte of Pain to a 1/1), in the following Death Phase the two Unstable Ghouls, by Rule 5, will both hit the Acolyte of Pain and cause it to draw a card, finally being removed from play as a 1/-1 with 3 total cards drawn.[31]
  • If you play a  Baron Geddon followed by a  Healing Totem, then end your turn, during the End of Turn Phase, Baron Geddon reduces the Healing Totem to 0 Health, then the Healing Totem heals itself for 1, and when we reach the Death Creation Step, the Healing Totem remains alive.[32][33] This also works, for example, with  Imp Master and Healing Totem.
  • If you play  Brann Bronzebeard and  Stampeding Kodo, the Stampeding Kodo cannot pick the same target twice, since it ignores pending destroy minions.
  • Poisonous on minions resolves in a queue with higher priority, and it stops  Grim Patron spawning regardless of Dominant Player. However, Poisonous on weapons and  Acidmaw can never stop Grim Patron spawning. This might be a bug.[34]
  • If you use  Mortal Coil on a minion while  Acidmaw is in play, because the damage is resolved before the condition is checked, the pending destroy target is considered to have been killed and a card will be drawn.[35]
  • You have  The Four Horsemen, 3 of the Horsemen and  Knife Juggler, but your hero is at only 1 health. Your opponent has an empty board with  Eye for an Eye. You summon the fourth Horseman from your Hero Power, setting enemy hero pending destroy. Knife Juggler will hit no one as there is no valid target, preventing you from being killed.[36]


Rule 6: Subsequent Phases of a Sequence will not run if a subject is required but is no longer in play. However, this is the only requirement - If the target of the action has some requirements beyond that, the requirements are not re-checked.


  • The subject of casting a spell doesn't exist - so  Counterspell only stops Overload and Spell Text Phase.
  • The subject of playing a minion is the minion itself.
  • The subjects of combat are the attacker and defender.

Examples:

  • You attack with a  Novice Engineer into  Explosive Trap. By the time the Combat Phase is reached, the Novice Engineer has been killed and removed from play, so no combat occurs.[37]
  • You attack with a  Truesilver Champion into a  Novice Engineer. During the Preparation Phase, an allied  Shadowboxer triggers and mortally wounds the Novice Engineer. By the time the Combat Phase is reached, the  Novice Engineer has been killed and removed from play, so no combat occurs.[38]
  • You have a  Knife Juggler and play an  Elven Archer into an  Unstable Ghoul with 1 Health left. After the Battlecry Phase, the Deathrattle kills the Elven Archer. By the time the Knife Juggler would trigger, the Elven Archer has been killed and removed from play.[39]
  • You cast  Shadow Word: Pain on a  Burly Rockjaw Trogg. It gets buffed to 5 attack before the spell's text begins. This wouldn't be a valid target before, but the spell successfully destroys the Burly Rockjaw Trogg.
  • A  Boulderfist Ogre is next to a  Dire Wolf Alpha and thus buffed to 7 attack. You play a  Big Game Hunter between the two and target the Boulderfist Ogre. By the time the Battlecry goes off, the Boulderfist Ogre is a 6 attack minion, but it is still destroyed.[40]

Exceptions:

  • If you cast a targeting spell, but the spell's target is removed from play before the spell text begins, it still goes off anyway (this matters, for example, with spells like  Drain Life that have side-effects).
  • Cards which target 'if you're Holding a Dragon' ( Rend Blackhand,  Blackwing Corruptor, and  Book Wyrm) check their requirements a second time during the Battlecry Phase, and will fail to have effect if their owner lacks a Dragon at this point, even if they were given a target.[41]


Rule 7: If one or more Deaths happened after the outermost Phase ended, a new Phase (called a “Death Phase”) begins, where Deaths are Queued in order of play. For each Death, all Death Event triggers (Deathrattles, on-Death Secrets and on-Death triggered effects) are Queued and resolved in order of play. When this is complete, the Death has been resolved.
  • After Patch 9.2.0.21517 consequences of Death can only work if their position and controller are valid before Death Creation Step.
  • Besides  Redemption, which has a special Priority that makes it always queue last, all triggers follow order of play exactly, however mingled that makes them get.[42][43]

Examples:

  • You have a  Duplicate put into play, a  Sludge Belcher injured to 4 Health and  Dark Cultist, played in that order. Your opponent casts  Flamestrike. In the Death Phase that follows, we consider first the Sludge Belcher's Death, queuing Duplicate then its Deathrattle. They go off in order, giving you two Sludge Belcher cards then summoning a  Putrid Slime. Now we consider the Dark Cultist's Death, queuing its Deathrattle. It triggers, buffing the Slime to 1/5. If the minions were played the other way around, the buff would have no target at time of activation and the Slime would remain at 1/2 (and you would be given two Dark Cultist cards instead).
  • You play a  Mad Scientist then a  Bloodfen Raptor. Your opponent casts  Flamestrike. In the Death Phase that follows, we consider first the Mad Scientist's Death, queuing its Deathrattle. It goes off and puts into play a  Duplicate. Now we consider the Bloodfen Raptor's Death. Since Duplicate is not present in Death Creation Step, it remains hidden.


Rule 8: A Death Phase can have yet another Death Phase after it. This process repeats forever until no new Deaths occur, and we can finally move on to the next intended Phase in the Sequence.


Examples:

  • You have an  Explosive Sheep and an  Abomination. Your opponent casts  Consecration. This creates a Death Phase to resolve the Death of the Explosive Sheep. Its Deathrattle triggered, after that Death Phase ends, the Abomination is dead and a second Death Phase is created to resolve its Death.

Exceptions:

  • There are some effects in the game that break this rule and kill minions in the middle of a Phase. Since it's in the middle of a Phase, when this “Forced Death Phase” ends, a new Death Phase can't be made to resolve new Deaths, and they remain unresolved for now. For more information, see the Forced Death Phase section.


Rule 9: Finally when the Sequence ends and the player gets control again, Hearthstone checks if the game has ended in a Win, Loss or Draw.
  • This means that if one Hero dies, the game does not immediately end - further triggers in the current Sequence may lead to the other Hero also dying.

Examples:

  • The enemy hero is at 1 Health and you aim an  Elven Archer's Battlecry at them. This kills them, but later your allied  Knife Juggler still triggers. This can cause the game to instead tie, for example if the knife kills an  Abomination which kills your hero.

Exception: Hearthstone decides the game as a win/loss/draw between the Preparation Phase and Combat Phase of attacking with a character. This is the only known exception.

  • You are at 2 Health and you attack with a  Snowchugger into  Explosive Trap. Preparing to attack is a Phase, containing the triggering of the Explosive Trap. During the Death Creation step following the Phase, your hero is killed (a Death Phase is made to resolve the Death of your hero, but there are no Death Event triggers so nothing happens). After that, Hearthstone checks if the game is over, and declares a Loss for you. (Note that the Snowchugger never finished its attack!)


Rule 10: Minions and effects have no memory of earlier board state. The moment an event takes place the board state is updated. Whenever a Queue is populated or an effect resolved (or continued), the most up to date board state is used.
  • One consequence of Rule 10 is that minions only know who their current controller is - they have no memory of their original controller. In MtG terms, this means owner = controller.
  • This also applies to effects that trigger or end at a specific player's start or end of turn. If they are stolen, then they forget their previous owner, and use the timing of their new owner.
  • The exception is  Blessing of Wisdom, which draws cards for its caster no matter how many times it is stolen. (However, its CONTROLLER tag is still changing values, like any other stolen enchantment attached to a stolen entity.)[44]  Shadow Madness also remembers which side it 'should go back to' even if stolen by  Sylvanas Windrunner in the mean time.[45]

Examples:

  • If you play a minion, and it is stolen by  Sylvanas Windrunner at any point of the 'Playing a minion Sequence' (such as before the Battlecry or after the Battlecry), the remaining Phases will be carried out as though the new owner had played the minion him/herself.[46][47][48]
  • If you play a  Dragon Egg then  Mad Bomber and the first bomb hits the  Dragon Egg, the on-damage trigger immediately runs, the Whelp immediately spawns, and the second and third bomb may hit the Whelp as though it always existed.[49]
  • Any time multiple minions with their own Deathrattles die simultaneously, the Deathrattles are resolved in order of play, and the outcome of each Deathrattle can be effected by the next Deathrattle, such as the  Damaged Golem from a  Harvest Golem being damaged by an  Explosive Sheep dying later. In addition, secrets like  Avenge will Queue for a Death Event if, at the start of a Death Event, a friendly minion is on the board - even if it was added by a previous Deathrattle, and didn't exist at the start of the Death Phase.
  • If your opponent plays  Conceal, which will end at the start of their next turn, and you use  Sylvanas Windrunner to steal one of their minions, the stolen minion will remain in stealth until the start of your next turn.[50]
  • If you play  Nightmare on a minion controlled by either player, the Nightmare Enchantment initially has you as its controller, and will trigger in your next Start of Turn Phase. However, whenever the minion changes controllers, the controller of the attached Nightmare becomes the same as the minion's new controller, so it will now trigger in the Start of Turn Phase of that controller.[51]
  • If you play  Kill Command with a friendly Beast in play, but  Violet Teacher triggering  Knife Juggler killing  Explosive Sheep kills your friendly Beast before the Spell Text Phase begins, the most up to date board state is used and 3 damage is dealt, not 5.[52]


Rule 10b: Triggered effects with a condition check their condition at these timings: Pre-check timing, Queuing and Triggering.
  • Only triggers in After Play Phase and Death Phase apply a pre-check - see Rule 2.
  • Targeting effects with a condition (like targeting Battlecries and Spells) work differently - see Rule 6.

Examples:

Death Phases and consequences of Death[edit | edit source]

(This section has a video accompaniment! Check out the 20 minute long video [Hearthstone Science] When Do Minions Die? here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3d_qlm4Xws )


Let's recap the Rules that are relevant to Death and processing it:


Rule 3: Once a Phase begins, nested Phases with their own Queues may start and end inside of it, but only the outermost Phase ending begins the Death Creation Step.


Rule 4a: After the outermost Phase ends, Hearthstone does an Aura Update (Health/Attack), then does the Death Creation Step (Looks for all mortally wounded (0 or less Health)/pending destroy (hit with a destroy effect) Entities and kills them, removing them from play simultaneously), then does an Aura Update (Other). Entities that have been removed from play cannot trigger, be triggered, or emit auras, and do not take up space.
Rule 4b: Besides, whenever a minion is summoned (but not played), Hearthstone updates both kinds of Auras.
Rule 4c: Some Auras that are known to update in Aura Update (Other), such as:  Baron Rivendare,  Auchenai Soulpriest,  Brann Bronzebeard,  Mal'Ganis's Immune effect,  Prophet Velen,  Violet Illusionist,  Drakkari Enchanter,  The Four Horsemen.
Rule 4d: Enchantments apply and modify Health/Attack/Mana costs the moment they are attached. However, during Aura Update (Health/Attack), the Enchantment List is re-processed and Health/Attack Auras, having a priority later than Health/Attack Enchantments, will be moved to the end of the Enchantment List during this timing. (However, Mana Cost Auras have no special priority compared to Mana Cost Enchantments.)


Rule 7: If one or more Deaths happened after the outermost Phase ended, a new Phase (called a “Death Phase”) begins, where Deaths are Queued in order of play. For each Death, all Death Event triggers (Deathrattles, on-Death Secrets and on-Death triggered effects) are Queued and resolved in order of play, then the Death is resolved.


Rule 8: A Death Phase can have yet another Death Phase after it. This process repeats forever until no new Deaths occur, and we can finally move on to the next intended Phase in the Sequence.


Notes:

  • An on-Death triggered effect triggers for a Death so long as its bearer is not dead yet and thus still in play. (Don't forget that mortally wounded and pending destroy are ONLY converted into dead once the outermost Phase ends!)
  • An on-Death Secret triggers for a Death so long as it existed at pre-check timing AND its queuing conditions were satisfied (in the case of  Avenge for example) at the time the Queue was created.

Exceptions:

  • Redemption has a Priority that means it always queues last, regardless of order of play. (It still queues with the first Death it can.) This prevents the minion's Deathrattle from affecting the newly revived copy, such as if it was an  Explosive Sheep.[56]

Examples:

  • Your opponent plays a  Deathlord. You damage it to a 2/2 then play a  Bloodfen Raptor and  Avenge. Your opponent trades the Deathlord into your Bloodfen Raptor, killing both. In the following Death Phase, the Deaths are considered in order - first the Deathlord (putting into play for you a  River Crocolisk and finally the Bloodfen Raptor (triggering the Avenge, as at the moment of the queuing you have an alive minion for its target). If the Deathlord was second in order of play, not first, the  Avenge would not go off as it would not have a valid target, THEN you would get a new minion.[57]
  • You play  Ancestral Spirit on an  Explosive Sheep and your opponent pings it. Because the Ancestral Spirit entered play second, in the following Death Phase, the 2 damage Deathrattle occurs THEN a new Explosive Sheep is summoned.
  • You play a  Piloted Shredder and  Explosive Sheep. Your opponent plays  Flamestrike. In the following Death Phase the Deaths are considered in order - first the Piloted Shredder (summoning a new Explosive Sheep) then the Explosive Sheep (mortally wounding the new Explosive Sheep). There are new Deaths, so once again a Death Phase is queued, where the new Explosive Sheep's Deathrattle resolves and also deals 2 damages to minions. If in this scenario your Explosive Sheep was played first, the newly summoned minion from Piloted Shredder would be undamaged.
  • You play an  Explosive Sheep and a  Cult Master. Your opponent pings the Explosive Sheep. In the following Death Phase the Explosive Sheep's Death is considered, and its Death Event triggers are queued in order - first the Explosive Sheep's Deathrattle, which mortally wounds the Cult Master, then the Cult Master's on-Death trigger, which draws a card. Finally, a new Death Phase begins where the Cult Master is killed and its Death Event triggers resolved. If Death happened instantaneously, the Cult Master would not have drawn once, but since it is delayed, he remained alive for the Phase's duration.
  • You play a  Cult Master and  Bloodfen Raptor in that order and have  Redemption in play. Your opponent plays  Flamestrike. A Death Phase begins where we consider first the Death of the Cult Master, triggering Redemption and summoning a new Cult Master, then the Death of the Bloodfen Raptor, where the newly summoned Cult Master cannot trigger.
  • You play  Feugen and  Stalagg and weaken both to 4 or less Health. Your opponent casts  Flamestrike, mortally wounding both during the Spell Text Phase. After that Phase ends, during the Death Creation Step, both minions are Killed and removed from play. In the subsequent Death Phase, we consider the Deaths in order - but since both Deaths already happened, you get two copies of  Thaddius, not one.[58]

Player Action Sequences[edit | edit source]

Start and end of turn[edit | edit source]

Now that we know the 10 Rules, we can very simply describe what happens between turns:

  • End of Turn Phase: All 'end of turn' Triggers (as well as the special case  Shadow Madness[59]) are Queued and resolved.
  • Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.[60] The game is a draw if turn 89 (aka Player 1's 45th turn) just ended.[61] It is now your opponent's turn. Hearthstone wears off expired enchantments (like  Ice Block's effect and  Bloodlust's effect), resets all counters related to 'this turn' (such as Deaths and cards played this turn), fills your opponent's mana, flips which player's weapons are sheathed/unsheathed, flips which player's Secrets are active[62], unflips your opponent's Hero Power and removes exhaustion from all characters.[63][64]
  • Start of Turn Phase: All 'start of turn' Triggers (including  Corruption and  Nightmare[65] and  Competitive Spirit[66]) are Queued and resolved.  Shifter Zerus also triggers here.[67]
  • Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.[68]
  • Draw a Card Phase: Your opponent draws one card, and any consequences are resolved now.
  • Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

Notes:

  • Enchantments that trigger at the start or end of turn Queue in order of play alongside typical triggers. Enchantments that simply end without any side-effects end 'between turns' instead.
  •  Echoing Ooze works by making an end-of-turn triggered effect on itself that can be doubled by  Brann Bronzebeard. ( Faceless Manipulator and  Mirror Entity can copy this.)
  •  Shadow Madness works by timing its enchantment to end in order of play, so it can occur before and after end-of-turn triggers.

Examples:

  • You play  Ragnaros the Firelord and cast  Shadow Madness on an enemy minion. They are queued in this order, and thus Ragnaros the Firelord damages an enemy character, THEN the stolen minion is returned.
  • You play  Shadow Madness on an enemy 1 Health  Imp Master. Because Shadow Madness queues second, you get Imp Master's end of turn trigger, THEN the minion is returned, THEN the Phase ends and Imp Master dies on your opponent's side of the board.
  • You play  Ragnaros the Firelord and then your opponent plays  Gruul. When you next end your turn, Ragnaros the Firelord may damage your opponent's Gruul to 8/0, but the Phase is not over - Gruul triggers and buffs himself to 9/1, and survives the Phase.
  • You play  Sneed's Old Shredder and your opponent plays  Ragnaros the Firelord. During the End of Turn Phase, Ragnaros hits and mortally wounds your Sneed's. In the Death Phase afterwards, Sneed's Deathrattle spawns a  Kel'Thuzad. However, Kel'Thuzad does not activate and revive your Sneed's, because the End of Turn Phase is already over.[69]
  • You play  Kel'Thuzad and suicide your  Emperor Thaurissan. At the end of your turn, Kel'Thuzad revives Emperor Thaurissan, but Emperor Thaurissan does not then trigger, because the Phase's Queue is immutable.
  • You play  Doomsayer then  Demolisher. At the start of your next turn, Doomsayer goes off first, but the Demolisher has not yet been removed from play, and will deal 2 damage one last time before the Phase ends and it is removed from play.
  • Your opponent has  Emperor Thaurissan. You play  Sylvanas Windrunner and cast  Power Overwhelming on it. At the end of your turn, the Power Overwhelming is Queued and Sylvanas is marked pending destroy. After that phase ends, a Death Phase begins where Sylvanas's Deathrattle steals Emperor Thaurissan. He does not trigger for you, because the phase where he would trigger is already over.
  • Your opponent has a  Repair Bot (which triggers to heal during the End of Turn Phase). You cast  Shadow Madness on it, then  Faceless Manipulator on the copy. During the End of Turn Phase, we see all triggers end in order of play - Repair Bot #1's trigger, Repair Bot #1's Shadow Madness ends, Repair Bot #2's trigger, Repair Bot #2's Shadow Madness ends.[70]
  • You steal your opponent's  Emperor Thaurissan with  Shadow Madness (perhaps via  Shrinkmeister). During the End of Turn Phase, triggers end in order of play, so you get 1 mana cost reduction from Thaurissan before he is returned to your opponent.[71]
  • You play  Kel'Thuzad and play  Power Overwhelming on a separate minion. Regardless of order of play, both triggers are queued during the End of Turn Phase, but the death does not occur until the following Death Phase, so Kel'Thuzad cannot revive minions killed during the End of Turn Phase.[72][73]

Playing a spell[edit | edit source]

When you play a spell, the following Sequence takes place:

  1. The card is removed from your hand and enters Play and its Mana cost is paid. If it targets, the target is remembered (and its validity is not checked again). (If the spell is paid for with health, your hero's health is reduced by that much)[74]
  2. On Play Phase: All "whenever" triggers on playing a card/casting a spell/playing a Secret Queue and resolve here, such as  Unbound Elemental,  Questing Adventurer,  Mana Wyrm,  Burly Rockjaw Trogg,  Secretkeeper[75] and  Violet Teacher.  Counterspell also triggers here - Counterspell will not stop triggers in this Phase, but will prevent the Overload and Spell Text Phase and send the spell to the Graveyard.[76]
  3. Spell Text Phase: Cards that affect spell targeting, such as  Spellbender and  Mayor Noggenfogger, queue and resolve.[77] Then the entirety of the spell text takes place in one Phase. All triggers to its events are fully resolved. (If it is a hero zone card, nothing happens here - it already entered play.)
  4. After Spell Phase: All "after" triggers on playing a card/casting a spell/playing a Secret Queue and resolve here.[78][79][80] Note that after Patch 9.2.0.21517 these triggers can only work if they're valid when the Sequence starts.
  5. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.[81]

Notes:

  •  Counterspell used to stop all subsequent Phases, but not triggers in the same Phase, until Patch 9.2.0.21517. After this patch, the full Sequence is allowed to continue.[82]
  • If the spell has a targeting condition (such as  Shadow Word: Pain), but the condition is no longer true by the time the Spell Text Phase is reached, the targeting condition is not re-checked and the spell proceeds.[83][84][85] Mayor Noggenfogger only chooses the target that is valid at his timing.
  • If the spell requires a target, and the target is removed from play during an intermediate Phase, the spell goes off anyway. It will affect its target in the Graveyard Zone, which mostly does nothing, but side-effects and second steps may still go off.
  • If the spell has multiple steps (e.g.  Blizzard,  Light of the Naaru[86],  Mortal Coil,  Holy Nova[87]), triggers can occur between steps, regardless of whether the card's text uses 'and' or 'then'.  Swipe used to be one of these, but its behaviour was changed in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch). For more information see Bugs#Swipe.
  • A small number of spells process Deaths in the middle of the Spell Text Phase. These are  Reincarnate and  Poison Seeds. For more information see the Forced Death Phase section.
  • Hero zone cards played from the hand enter play before the On Play Phase, and the effect of Counterspell is to send them to the Graveyard.[88] (Both these statements are also true for regular Spells, by the way - just that a spell doesn't maintain physical presence while it's in play.)

Examples:

  • You play  Violet Teacher then cast  Power of the Wild. The new  Violet Apprentice appears before the Spell Text Phase and gets the +1/+1.
  • You play  Violet Teacher and  Knife Juggler then cast  Swipe on an enemy minion with 1 Health. During the On Play Phase, Violet Teacher summons a  Violet Apprentice, which triggers Knife Juggler and mortally wounds the enemy. By the time the Spell Text Phase begins the target has been removed from play, but the Swipe still goes through its spell text and deals 1 AoE damage to all enemy characters.[89] A similar setup using  Cone of Cold instead will show that the Cone of Cold hits and freezes nothing, since its target, now in the Graveyard, has no adjacent minions on the playing field.[90]
  • You cast  Blizzard on a  Dragon Egg. It triggers on the 2 damage, summons a Whelp, and then the AoE Freeze occurs, freezing the Whelp. This is officially not a bug.[91]
  • Your enemy plays  Counterspell. You play an  Unbound Elemental and  Tunnel Trogg then  Lightning Bolt. Unbound Elemental gains a buff AND Counterspell goes off. You gain no Overload, so  Tunnel Trogg does not trigger.
  • Your enemy plays a  River Crocolisk. You play a  Flamewaker then  Frostbolt the River Crocolisk. By the time the Flamewaker triggers, the River Crocolisk has been removed from play and so all the damage goes to the enemy hero.
  • Your enemy has many minions, you have seven Flamewakers and cast  Arcane Intellect. By Rule 5, no Flamewaker will overkill any enemy minion, similar to how multiple Knife Jugglers work.
  • You are at 3 Health and your opponent is at 1 Health. You have a  Violet Teacher and  Knife Juggler. You play  Hellfire. Before the Spell Text Phase, a  Violet Apprentice is summoned and the Knife Juggler kills your opponent. However, the Sequence continues, and you kill yourself with the Hellfire cast, and the game ends in a draw.[92]

Playing a weapon[edit | edit source]

When you play a weapon, the following Sequence takes place:

  1. The card is removed from your hand and its Mana cost is paid. The card enters Play as a weapon. If it targets, the target is remembered.
  2. On Play Phase: All "whenever" triggers on playing a card Queue and resolve here, such as  Questing Adventurer,  Fel Reaver and  Keening Banshee.
  3. Equipping Phase: The Battlecry of your new weapon (if any) is resolved. Then triggers on equipping a weapon. Finally your old weapon is destroyed and removed from play. The Deathrattle of your old weapon (if any) and triggers on destroying a weapon are resolved in the order of play.
  4. After Play Phase: All "after" triggers on playing a card resolve here.
  5. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

Notes:

  • Your old weapon isn't removed immediately your new weapon enters play, and you are regarded as equipping two weapon simultaneously during this time. Both weapons' effects can trigger even if they are of the same name.
  • Your new weapon's Battlecry can be affected by your old weapon.
  • Before Patch 9.0.0.20457 there is no concept of pending destroy coded for Weapons. This means that the spells  Sabotage and  Blade Flurry and the Battlecries of  Acidic Swamp Ooze and  Harrison Jones, and even the very basic action of equipping a weapon over a weapon must forcefully move the weapon to the Graveyard, rather than letting it naturally happen at the end of the Phase in order of play with any other Deaths caused.

Examples:

Playing a Hero card[edit | edit source]

When you play a Hero card, the following Sequence takes place:

  1. The card is removed from your hand and its Mana cost is paid.
  2. On Play Phase: All "whenever" triggers on playing a card Queue and resolve here, such as  Questing Adventurer,  Fel Reaver and  Keening Banshee.
  3. Battlecry Phase: First your hero is replaced by a Hero with the same current Health and maximum Health and gain Armor displayed on the card. Then the Battlecry/Choose One is resolved. Finally, replace your Hero Power with the hero's Hero Power.
  4. After Play Phase: All "after" triggers on playing a card resolve here.
  5. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

Whenever you replace your hero with another Hero, in general, everything that is an attribute of or an enchantment on your previous hero is gone, and the following things happen:

  • You are unfrozen.[97]
  • All temporary enchantments are NOT destroyed (such as temporary Attack or  Shadowblade's temporary Immune enchantment).
  • If the replacement hero does not have a new weapon, you keep your weapon. Else a new weapon is automatically equipped, destroying any previous weapon.
  • Your weapon swing is not refreshed.[98]
  • Your Hero Power is replaced with the Hero card’s associated Hero Power, and is immediately usable.
  • If the Hero card is not Neutral, your hero becomes the class of the Hero card. If it is, you keep your previous class.

Playing/using a location[edit | edit source]

When you play a location, the following Sequence takes place:

  1. The card is removed from your hand and its Mana cost is paid.
  2. On Play Phase: All "whenever" triggers on playing a card Queue and resolve here, such as  Questing Adventurer,  Fel Reaver and  Keening Banshee.
  3. Summon Phase: As locations do not have any immediate effects when entering play, nothing happens here.
  4. After Play Phase: All "after" triggers on playing a card resolve here. The location is activated and can now be used.
  5. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

When a location is used, if it targets, the target is remembered (and its validity is not checked again). Then, depending on its effect, the Sequence of events functions similarly to playing a spell or triggering a minion's Battlecry.

Playing/summoning a minion[edit | edit source]

When you Play a minion, the following Sequence takes place, which ends early if the minion leaves play (such as due to death):

  1. The card is removed from your hand and its Mana cost is paid. The card enters Play as a minion, creating a Summon Event and becoming interactible. If it targets, the target is remembered (and its validity is not checked again).
  2. On Play Phase: All "whenever" triggers on playing a card/playing a minion, such as  Hobgoblin[100],  Questing Adventurer[101],  Fel Reaver,  Unbound Elemental,  Tunnel Trogg[102],  Illidan Stormrage[103] and  Crowd Favorite[104] Queue and resolve here.
  3. (Because of the Summon Resolution Step, all "whenever" triggers on summoning a minion, such as  Starving Buzzard[105],  One-eyed Cheat[106],  Undertaker[107] and more Queue and resolve for the played minion here. [108][109])
  4. Battlecry Phase: First, cards that force target redirects, such as  Mayor Noggenfogger, resolve. Then the on-play keyword, such as Battlecry/Combo/Choose One/Manathirst is fully resolved here.[110][111][112] (If your Battlecries are being doubled, such as by controlling  Brann Bronzebeard when the Phase began, run Aura Update (Health/Attack) then resolve the Battlecry again.)[113][114][115][116][117]
  5. After Play & After Summon Phase: First all "after" triggers on playing a card/playing a minion, such as  Mirror Entity[118],  Repentance[119],  Snipe[120],  Sacred Trial[121][122][123][124],  Potion of Polymorph and  Rumbling Elemental[125] Queue and resolve. Then all "after" triggers on summoning a minion, such as  Ship's Cannon[126],  Knife Juggler, and  Sword of Justice[127][128] Queue and resolve. Note that after Patch 9.2.0.21517 these triggers can only work if they're valid when the Sequence starts.
  6. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.[129]

If a minion is merely summoned rather than played, it is inside of a larger Phase, so we are currently not processing Deaths or checking for win/loss/draw. The Sequence is now far simpler:

  1. The card is generated (or moved from your hand/deck if due to a Force Play mechanic) and enters Play, creating a Summon Event and becoming interactible.
  2. After Summon Phase

Notes:

  • Whenever an outermost Phase with a summon inside of it ends, the "Summon Resolution Step" occurs after the first Aura Update (Health/Attack) but before Death Creation Step, triggering on Summon Events that were made the previous Phase. (For more information, see the Summon Resolution Step section.)
  • The Battlecry's condition is only required to be valid when the minion is played, not when the Battlecry Phase begins, similar to the way it works for spells with target conditions.[130] Mayor Noggenfogger only chooses the target that is valid at his timing.
  • The Battlecry still occurs even if the played minion Dies first. If the Battlecry uses the played minion as a target, then it affects its position in the Graveyard, not the position it had on the board, because it has already left play.[131][132] This is probably a bug.
  • Note that if the played minion is stolen before the After Play Phase, an enemy  Mirror Entity will no longer trigger.[133] It is currently untested, but possible that enemy Knife Jugglers/ Sword of Justice will trigger if the played minion is stolen before the After Summon Phase.
  • Interestingly, if the played minion leaves play during this Sequence, then enters play again (this is possible using  Dread Infernal,  Anub'ar Ambusher and  Voidcaller), the minion being re-summoned will run triggers like  Knife Juggler, and the minion being originally played will continue to resolve as though it never left play. So it is less correct to say 'the Sequence ends early' and more correct to say 'in general, triggers in this Sequence only trigger if the played minion is still in play and under your control'[134]
  • Secrets that affect the played minion directly, such as  Snipe,  Potion of Polymorph, or  Sacred Trial, ignore mortally wounded/pending destroy minions. Secrets that have effects that don't depend on the minion being alive, such as  Hidden Cache and  Frozen Clone trigger on mortally wounded/pending destroy minions. None of these Secrets trigger if the played minion has left play prior to the After Play Phase.[135]

Examples:

  • You play  Knife Juggler then  Dr. Boom. When Dr. Boom's Battlecry (a Phase) begins,Boom Bots are summoned, and each one triggers the Knife Juggler to throw knives at enemy minions with Deathrattles. Even though minion summoning is a Sequence of multiple Phases, we are already inside of a Phase, so the entire Battlecry remains inside of one Phase, rather than starting and stopping. Finally when the Battlecry resolves, Deaths are processed and the Deathrattles go off.[136]
  • Your opponent plays an  Explosive Sheep,  Snipe and  Mirror Entity. You have a  Sword of Justice,  Knife Juggler (buffed to 3/4) and play an  Elven Archer targetting the Explosive Sheep. The Elven Archer Dies as a result of the Battlecry Phase, and no further Phases are considered, so the enemy Snipe, Knife Juggler and Sword of Justice do not go off. (Prior to Patch 7.1,  Mirror Entity then triggers and create a fresh, 1/1 Elven Archer. After Patch 7.1, it will not trigger.)[137][138]
  • You have a  Hobgoblin and  Dire Wolf Alpha and play an  Argent Squire next to the Dire Wolf Alpha. Because the newly played minion does not receive auras until after the Hobgoblin triggers, it gets its +2/+2 buff. If you hypothetically had an Illidan Stromrage (played before Hobgoblin), it will summon a  Flame of Azzinoth causing Aura Update. So the original minion cannot get buff.[139]
  • You equip a  Sword of Justice and play a  Bloodsail Raider, triggering your enemy's  Mirror Entity. The mirrored copy, being Summoned after the Battlecry Phase but before the After Summon Phase (in which Sword of Justice triggers), remains a 3/3, then only yours becomes a 4/4.
  • You play  Illidan Stormrage then a  Knife Juggler. Illidan Stormrage triggers before Battlecries and before the usual, late phase Knife Juggler triggers on, summoning a  Flame of Azzinoth. During THAT summon, the newly played  Knife Juggler, being in play, is eligible to be Queued and trigger, throwing a knife for it.[140]
  • If a card is added to your hand (going from 9 cards to 10 cards) between a Twilight Drake being played and its Battlecry going off, the Battlecry includes the new hand size (it gains 10 health, becoming 4/11). [141]

Minions removed from play during summoning[edit | edit source]

A few effects can cause minions to be removed from play after a minion enters play but before its summoning completes, usually by mortally wounding them.

If the minion being played or the target of its Battlecry is removed, the Battlecry is not canceled, but uses the minion's new position and attributes in the Graveyard instead of its old in play status. Note that when minions are placed in the Graveyard, they are restored to default attributes, including their original maximum Health.

If the minion being played is removed from play before the After Play Phase, as of Patch 7.1, no Secrets will trigger on the played minion.[142]

Examples:

Note:  Illidan Stormrage is currently the only card that adds or removes minions from the board in between a minion's being played and its Battlecry, so it is used in conjunction with Knife Jugglers and minions that react to damage or death (e.g.  Explosive Sheep and  Abomination) to accomplish minion removal in most examples.

  • If a  Twilight Drake becomes mortally wounded before the Battlecry Phase, it is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase can save it from dying (and most triggers in the summoning sequence will not work).[143]
  •  Faceless Manipulator and  Druid of the Claw will still transform even if they are removed from play by the Illidan combo. (Before Patch 7.1,  Mirror Entity would copy the post-transformed state from the Graveyard.[144] ) However, if the post-transformed minion has a Deathrattle, it will not trigger, because the minion already died before the transformation happened.[145]
  • If an  Ironbeak Owl is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase, the silence still goes off on its target.[146]
  • If  Vol'jin targets a minion that is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase, the Health swap still goes off - and since minions moved to the Graveyard are reset to default attributes, Vol'jin gets full, undamaged Health instead of 0 Health.[147] Conversely, if Vol'jin is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase, the target has its Health swapped with 2.[148]
  • If a  Defender of Argus is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase, it does not Taunt adjacent minions because the Battlecry triggered in the Graveyard.[149]
  • If a  C'Thun is removed from play before the Battlecry Phase, it will shoot 6 missiles, since his default state will be that of a 6/6 in the Graveyard.[150]

Sequence of self-transform minions and after-play transform triggers[edit | edit source]

If the minion you play transforms through battlecry (such as  Faceless Manipulator or  Druid of the Claw), its Battlecry Phase and After Play Phase will be different from normal minions:

  1. Battlecry Phase: First transform the original minion, then an After Play & After Summon Phase is inserted for the post-transform minion called Inserted Phase.
  2. After Play Phase: After Play triggers for the pre-transform minion are resolved.

Inserted Phase also starts for the Sheep when the minion you played is transformed by  Potion of Polymorph in After Play & After Summon Phase or Inserted Phase.

Notes:

  • Similar to normal sequences, steps between phases also exist between the Battlecry Phase and After Play Phase above. You are considered to have summoned the post-transform minion. But you are not considered to have summoned the Sheep if it is polymorphed.
  • Some After Play triggers don't work in Inserted Phase, including  Hidden Cache,  Rumbling Elemental,  Sherazin, Seed,  Patches the Pirate,  The Marsh Queen,  The Caverns Below,  Lesser Ruby Spellstone and  Voidform's refreshing effect. Also, they don't require the original subject still present when they work in After Play Phase.
  • All After Summon triggers work in Inserted Phase. After Summon Phase doesn't exist for the original subject has been removed.

Examples:

Combat[edit | edit source]

When you order a minion to attack another minion, the following Sequence takes place: (As with other Sequences, if the attacker or defender leaves play for any reason, the current Phase will finish resolving but the Sequence will end early afterwards.)

  1. If you have a weapon that grants Immunity while attacking, such as  Gladiator's Longbow or  Candleshot at the start of Combat Sequence, you are Immune in the whole Sequence.[151][152]
  2. Combat Preparation Phase: A Proposed Attack Event is resolved. If the defender changes, another Proposed Attack Event is created and placed in this Phase's Event Queue after the current Proposed Attack Event. (It will begin to resolve when the current Proposed Attack Event finishes resolving.) Finally, an Attack Event is resolved. Additionally, the attacker will lose Stealth.[153][154]
  3. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.[155]
  4. Combat Phase: Damage is dealt simultaneously in the order (attack, counterattack) and resolved. The attacker's weapon loses durability (unless prevented due to the weapon being Immune). An After Attack Event is resolved even if 0 damage was dealt to the defender. Note that after Patch 9.2.0.21517 after attack triggers can only work if they're valid when the Sequence starts.
  5. Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

The subjects of Combat are the attacker and defender. Even if the attacker or defender (or both) is mortally wounded or leaves play, triggers that ask what the current attacker/defender is will continue to be able to queue and resolve (assuming their other conditions are satisfied.)

Proposed Attack Event[edit | edit source]

Triggers on the Proposed Attack Event include those that can change the defender, cause the attacker to become mortally wounded or leave play, and so on.

At the start of resolving a Proposed Attack Event, triggers queue based on the defender at that moment, and will remain in the queue even if the defender changes.

When the defender changes, a new Proposed Attack Event is inserted into the Combat Preparation Phase's Event Queue after the currently resolving one. (It will therefore resolve once the current Proposed Attack Event finishes resolving, and therefore use the defender at that point in time.)

(As a reminder: Queuing conditions are only required to be true when the Event they trigger on starts to resolve, whereas trigger conditions are only required to be true when the trigger resolves.)

Examples:

  •  Freezing Trap has a queuing condition of 'attacker is an enemy minion' and a trigger condition of 'attacker is not mortally wounded/pending destroy'.[156][157]
  •  Misdirection has a queuing condition of 'defender is your hero and there is a third, not mortally wounded, not Immune Character in play'[158][159] and a trigger condition of 'attacker is in play and - if it is a minion[160] - not mortally wounded, and there is a third, not mortally wounded, not Immune Character in play'.[161][162][163]
  •  Explosive Trap has a queuing condition of 'defender is your hero'.[164]
  •  Snake Trap has a queuing condition of 'defender is a friendly minion' and a trigger condition of 'board is not full'.[165][166]
  •  Noble Sacrifice has a trigger condition of 'board is not full'.[167][168]
  •  Vaporize has a queuing condition of 'attacker is an enemy minion and defender is your hero' and a trigger condition of 'attacker is in play and not mortally wounded'.[169][170]
  •  Ice Barrier has a condition of 'defender is your hero'.[171]
  • Forgetful and  Mogor the Ogre cannot trigger on a later Proposed Attack Event if they fail the 50% chance.[172]
  • Forgetful has a queuing condition of 'attacker is this minion'.
  •  Mogor the Ogre has a queuing condition of 'attacker is a minion'.
  •  Shaku, the Collector has a queuing condition of 'attacker is this minion'.[173]
  •  Mayor Noggenfogger has a condition of 'attacker is still on the battlefield'. He could choose any enemy as the new target.
  •  Genzo, the Shark has a queuing condition of 'attacker is this minion'. Additionally, it currently has a bug (like the old  Cutpurse bug[174]) that lets it trigger twice if its target is changed after triggering once.[175]
  •  Gladiator's Longbow has a queuing condition of 'attacker is your hero'.[176] (This means that Gladiator's Longbow vs  Explosive Trap is determined by the Dominant Player Bug.)
  •  Sudden Betrayal has a condition of 'defender is your hero, and there is a not mortally wounded, not Immune minion near the attacker'.
  •  Wandering Monster has a condition of 'defender is your hero, and your board is not full'.

Attack Event[edit | edit source]

Triggers on the Attack Event include those that need to occur only once the final defender is known, or those that do not significantly affect the game state. The Attack Event is only resolved if the previous Proposed Attack Event did not change the defender.

Examples:

  •  Truesilver Champion has a condition of 'attacker is your hero'.[177][178][179]
  •  Gorehowl has a condition of 'attacker is your hero and defender is a minion'. It attaches an Enchantment called "Bloodrage" to Gorehowl, which makes Gorehowl Immune and triggers on the After Attack Event.[180][181]
  •  Cutpurse has a condition of 'attacker is this minion and defender is a hero'. It implicitly requires the Cutpurse to still be in play.[182]
  •  Power Word: Glory has a condition of 'attacker is this minion'. It implicitly requires the attacker to still be in play, as it gets detached when the attacker leaves play.[183]
  •  Blessing of Wisdom has a condition of 'attacker is this minion'. It implicitly requires the attacker to still be in play, as it gets detached when the attacker leaves play.[184][185][186]

After Attack Event[edit | edit source]

An After Attack Event is resolved as long as the attack was successful, even if it dealt 0 damage.

(Note that unlike other triggers that go 'after' something, such as  Rumbling Elemental and  Djinni of Zephyrs, the After Attack Event is resolved in the same Phase, not a later Phase, as the combat damage, meaning death processing is not done in-between.)

Examples of triggers on the After Attack Event are as follows:

  •  Gorehowl has a condition of 'attacker is your hero and defender is a minion' and attaches to itself an Enchantment granting -1 Attack.
  •  Gorehowl's Enchantment "Bloodrage" has a condition of 'attacker is your hero' and triggers to detach, ending Gorehowl's temporary Immune state.[187]
  •  Bear Trap has a condition of 'defender is your hero and board is not full'.[188][189]
  •  Foe Reaper 4000/ Magnataur Alpha has a condition of 'attacker is this minion'.[190]

Examples[edit | edit source]

Proposed Attack Events/Attack Events

  • Because every Proposed Attack Event resolves before the Attack Event, some triggers on attacking will always trigger before others regardless of order of play. For example,  Explosive Trap always triggers before  Truesilver Champion, and  Freezing Trap always triggers before  Blessing of Wisdom.
  • Because Proposed Attack Events are created and resolved until the proposed defender does not change, triggers that change the proposed defender like Forgetful,  Mogor the Ogre and  Noble Sacrifice can allow Secrets related to attacking an enemy Hero AND attacking an enemy Minion to trigger on the same attack:
    • If you have an  Ogre Brute and your opponent (the Dominant Player) has an  Explosive Trap, you attack a minion with the Ogre Brute but Forgetful triggers and targets the enemy Hero, the Explosive Trap goes off.[191]
  • Conversely, since triggers on a Proposed Attack Event remain queued for the original proposed defender if it changes, you can't prevent an enemy Secret from triggering by redirecting away from it.
  • However, if you redirect onto an enemy target and redirect off of it while still resolving the same Proposed Attack Event, then since no Proposed Attack Event ever started being resolved with that specific target, Secrets related to that target being the defender will not trigger!
    • If you attack with an  Ogre Brute into an enemy minion, and the first Proposed Attack Event queues and resolves Forgetful (targeting the enemy Hero) then  Noble Sacrifice (targeting an enemy minion), the second Proposed Attack Event now queues and resolves with the enemy minion as the defender. Despite briefly attacking the enemy Hero,  Explosive Trap will not trigger.[194]
  • Many Secrets related to combat have a trigger condition that prevents them from triggering and doing 'nothing' (like  Freezing Trap doesn't trigger if the attacker is mortally wounded by  Explosive Trap first, and  Noble Sacrifice doesn't trigger if there's no room). However, not all such trigger conditions exist - for example,  Explosive Trap triggers even if the attacker is no longer in play, and  Noble Sacrifice triggers even if the attacker is no longer in play or mortally wounded.
  • Unlike Proposed Attack Event triggers, Attack Event triggers will only run if the final attack satisfies their condition.
    • If an  Ogre Brute targets the enemy Hero but Forgetful triggers and redirects it to target an enemy minion, regardless of order of play, the enemy  Ice Barrier never triggers.[195]


Death processing

  • As with all other Sequences in Hearthstone, death processing is not done in the middle of a Phase, but is done between Phases, and Death Phases inserted to resolve triggers on Death Events until no new deaths occur.

Examples:

  • It is commonly said that  Truesilver Champion heals you before  Explosive Trap, and that's why you stay alive. This is not true - you actually stay alive because your hero cannot die in the middle of a Phase (which the Preparation Phase is), and that is also why the order of play does not matter.[196][197] (Similar interactions, such as  Floating Watcher vs Explosive Trap, work the same way.)[198]


Auras

  • As with all other Sequences, Auras added or removed after the Combat Preparation Phase will affect the outcome of the Combat Phase, such as changing Attack values[199] or adding/removing Immune status.[200]


Ending the Game

  • Normally, Sequences wait to be fully resolved before checking for win/loss/draw. However, the Combat sequence additionally checks just before the Combat Phase would begin. This can cause what 'should be a draw' to be a loss instead, usually due to  Explosive Trap.
  • The visual result is that the attacking character remains suspended in mid-air as the game ends.
  • A combat started by a card that triggers an attack, such as  Swamp King Dred's effect, also has Combat Preparation Phase, but no Death Creation Step or check for win/loss/draw run after it.[201]

Examples:

  • If you are at 2 Health and your opponent at 2 Health and attack with  Stormwind Knight into  Explosive Trap, the Explosive Trap triggers, and Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw. The Stormwind Knight's attack never finishes, and you lose.[202]
  • If you have an  Auchenai Soulpriest on the field, are at 4 Health and attack with a minion which you previously cast  Power Word: Glory on, the Power Word Glory triggers in the Combat Preparation Phase, mortally wounding your Hero. Win/loss/draw is checked before the Combat Phase, and you lose the game, even if the attack finishing would have caused a draw.[203]
  • If you are at 2 Health and your opponent at 2 Health and attack with  Stormwind Knight into  Explosive Trap and  Freezing Trap (played in that order), the Explosive Trap triggers, mortally wounding your hero, then the Freezing Trap triggers, sending the Stormwind Knight back into your hand, then Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw, and you lose.[204] (You of course still lose if the order is the other way around, as Explosive Trap will trigger anyway.)
  • As usual, Hearthstone checks (again) for win/loss/draw when the Sequence is fully resolved. For example: You have a  Knife Juggler and  Bear Trap in play and your opponent's Health is 1. Your opponent attacks your Hero with a minion, reducing you to 0 or less Health, but before the game ends, your Bear Trap triggers, triggering the Knife Juggler to reduce your opponent's Health to 0. Then, the game ends in a draw[205]


Ordering of damage in the Combat Phase

  • Because the weapon losing durability and the damage are in the same Phase, weapons with Deathrattles such as  Death's Bite have their Deaths Events considered in order of play with the minion that died, in the following Death Phase.[206]
  • If both minions trigger when they take damage (such as a  Grim Patron and an  Imp Gang Boss), the defender ALWAYS triggers first, regardless of order of play.[207][208] Keep in mind that Grim Patron has a trigger condition of 'not mortally wounded', so even if it survived the initial damaged, follow-up damage may prevent Grim Patron from triggering.
  • If both minions trigger when they deal damage (such as  Queen of Pain and Poison), the attacker ALWAYS triggers first, regardless of order of play.

Examples:

  • You play a  Grim Patron. Your opponent has a  Knife Juggler and plays an  Imp Gang Boss (the knife hits face). On your turn, your Grim Patron attacks their Imp Gang Boss. The simultaneous damage triggers are queued in the order [Imp Gang Boss, Grim Patron] because the defender queues first. An Imp is summoned, triggering the allied Knife Juggler to throw a knife and mortally wound your Grim Patron. Now your Grim Patron would trigger, but it is mortally wounded, so the trigger condition fails and you do not get a new Grim Patron.[209]
  • You attack with a 4/1  Death's Bite into a 3/4  Sludge Belcher, mortally wounding both the weapon and the minion. Whether the  Putrid Slime appears first (and thus becomes a 1/1) or second (and thus stays a 1/2) depends on whether the minion or weapon entered play first.


Unusual attackers/defenders

  • Besides the attacker or defender leaving play, there are no other known conditions that will cause the Combat Phase to be skipped - for example, the defender becoming an ally, the attacker becoming an enemy, the attacking character becoming 0 Attack and the attacking weapon being replaced with a new weapon all allow Combat Phase to proceed.

Examples:

  • You attack with a  Truesilver Champion into a  Novice Engineer. During the Preparation Phase, an allied  Shadowboxer triggers and mortally wounds the Novice Engineer. By the time the Combat Phase is reached, the  Novice Engineer has been killed and removed from play, so no combat occurs, and you can attack again.[210][211]
  • You have a 5/1  Sylvanas Windrunner and attack with a  Truesilver Champion into an enemy  Shadowboxer. During the Preparation Phase, the enemy  Shadowboxer triggers and mortally wounds your  Sylvanas Windrunner. By the time the Combat Phase is reached, the  Shadowboxer has been stolen to your side, but you still exchange damage with it and kill it.[212]
  • If resolving the Preparation Phase caused your weapon to be replaced because  Tirion Fordring's Deathrattle was triggered, you perform the attack with the newly equipped weapon.[213]
  • If resolving the Preparation Phase caused your  Gorehowl to have 0 Attack because an allied  Spiteful Smith died and its Aura stopped, you perform the attack but deal 0 damage, and lose durability/become exhausted.[214] This also works if the attacking minion becomes 0 Attack.[215]
  • If resolving the Preparation Phase caused your attacker to become an enemy, it still performs its attack on its now-ally,[216] and will perform it with Auras such as from an enemy  Stormwind Champion.[217]
  • If a friendly minion can only attack because it has temporary Charge from  Tundra Rhino, the Tundra Rhino does not have to survive until the actual combat happens (for example, if it dies to  Explosive Trap, the combat will not be cancelled).[218]


Cancelling combat

  • If the attack is cancelled (after 0-1 Death Phases), the attacker has not used one of their attacks for this turn and can immediately attack again.
  • However, if combat is cancelled because the defender dies after 2 or more Death Phases, such as  Noble Sacrifice triggering  Knife Juggler mortally wounding a  Boom Bot, which in the subsequent Death Phase mortally wounds the defender, which THEN dies, then the attack is cancelled AND the attacker cannot attack again this turn. We can tell this is a bug, because the minion also remains visually in the wrong place on the board.[219]


Other

  • Before Patch 8.2.0.19506， due to the way  Gorehowl is coded, if you propose to attack a minion, but the attack is cancelled due to the defender dying (an easy way is to be  Misdirection redirected onto a minion, then the minion is mortally wounded by  Explosive Trap), Gorehowl will continue to have "Bloodrage" attached and continue to be Immune. Enemy Bloodsail Corsairs will not deal damage (since Immune prevents damage), but it can still be destroyed. In addition, if you perform an attack with this Gorehowl on the enemy Hero, it will not lose Durability OR Attack, but will lose "Bloodrage" and thus its Immune state.[220][221] Now "Bloodrage" will be removed if the battle is canceled.[222]
  • Sometimes Combat is still cancelled when both attacker and defender are alive. For example, you attack with your 6/2 self buffed  Floating Watcher into enemy  Explosive Trap. Watcher cannot finish the attack but is still alive as a 8/2, and it cannot attack again. If it is an unbuffed 4/2 previously, it attacks successfully.[223]
  • Before Patch 5.2.0.13714 (2016-07-14),  Ice Barrier was an Attack Event trigger rather than a Proposed Attack Event trigger.[224][225][226]

Using your Hero Power[edit | edit source]

Related Video for this section: [Hearthstone Science] TGT Science #01: Inspire and Advanced Mechanics

The Hero Power Sequence is as follows:

  • Hero Power Phase: Your Hero Power takes effect then is exhausted. (The "number of times you have used your Hero Power this turn" and "number of times you have used your Hero Power this game" counters are increased by 1.)
  • Inspire Phase: Inspire triggers, and any other card that triggers with using the Hero Power, such as  Poisoned Blade,  Dart Trap and  Ice Walker[227] Queue and Resolve here. Note that after Patch 9.2.0.21517 these triggers can only work if they're valid when the Sequence starts.
  • Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw.

Notes

  • Inspire also belongs to 'After ...' effects. After Patch 9.2.0.21517 it can only work if it's valid at an earlier timing.
  •  Ice Walker still triggers even the target is not present, including dying, being removed out by  Transmute Spirit and being returned to hand by  Coliseum Manager.  Moorabi can get a copy of it. Multiple Ice Walker can trigger Moorabi multiple times.[228]

Examples:

  • You use your Hero Power to kill an enemy Deathlord, putting into play for you an Inspire minion. Its Inspire effect cannot work.
  • If your Hero dies as a result of your Hero Power or deaths caused by it, a friendly  Tournament Medic will not be able to heal you because of the Death Creation Step between Phases. However, if you play a  Spawn of Shadows and a  Tournament Medic in that order, the Spawn of Shadows can mortally wound you, then the Tournament Medic can heal you back to positive Health, because the two triggers are in the same Phase.
  • If you use your Hero Power to kill the enemy Hero, then a  Spawn of Shadows triggers in the Inspire Phase and reduces you to 0 Health, then the game ends in a tie instead of a win, because Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw only at the end of the Sequence.
  • If you play  Brave Archer,  Recruiter and a second Brave Archer, then use your Hero Power with an empty hand, the first Brave Archer triggers, then the Recruiter triggers, then the second Brave Archer does not trigger, because it checks its condition when triggering and decides not to trigger.
  • If you use your Hero Power to kill an enemy  Mal'Ganis, then a  Spawn of Shadows triggers in the Inspire Phase, the enemy Hero will take 4 damage because Aura Update (Other) runs between Phases.

Refreshing your Hero Power[edit | edit source]

Your Hero Power is refreshed (and thus made usable again) at the following timings:

  • At the beginning of your turn, when the "number of times you have used your Hero Power this turn" counter is reset too;
  • When you replace your Hero Power with a new one (casting spells like  Shadowform[229], or replacing your hero using hero cards), even if it's with the exact same one;[230] (Replacing your Hero Power also resets the "number of times you have used your Hero Power this turn" counter.)
  • At Aura Update (Health/Attack) timing, if you control a card that grants unlimited Hero Power uses, such as  Coldarra Drake;
  • At Aura Update (Health/Attack) timing, if you control a card that grants multiple Hero Power uses, such as  Garrison Commander and the "number of times you have used your Hero Power this turn" counter is 1;
  • When you cast a card to activate effects such as  Auctionmaster Beardo and  Voidform
  • When you activate the battlecry of cards such as  Blackwald Pixie.

Notes:

  • As of Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch),  Coldarra Drake and  Garrison Commander refresh your Hero Power at Aura Update (Health/Attack) timing as long as you control them, regardless of how you began to control them (including stealing them and transforming into them).[231] They do not unrefresh your Hero Power if they leave your control (such as due to death).
  •  Coldarra Drake and  Garrison Commander used to be a combination of a Summon Resolution Step trigger (for when they were initally played, summoned or transformed into by a Battlecry) and an Inspire trigger (for after you use your Hero Power thereafter). This caused some bugs, such as Mind Controlling a Garrison Commander not refreshing your Hero Power.[232]

Examples:

  • You use your Hero Power once then  Mind Control a  Garrison Commander. Your Hero Power is refreshed.
  • You use your Hero Power once then  Faceless Manipulator an enemy  Garrison Commander. Your Hero Power is refreshed.
  • You use your Hero Power to kill your  Garrison Commander. Your Hero Power is refreshed, then the minion dies.
  • Since when you replace your Hero Power the "number of times you have used your Hero Power this turn" counter is reset to 0, Garrison Commander will allow you 2 more uses of your new Hero Power that turn.[233]

Other mechanics[edit | edit source]

Replacing your hero[edit | edit source]

Whenever you replace your hero with a new one, in general, everything that is an attribute of or an enchantment on your previous hero is gone, and the following things happen:

  • Damage, Health, and Armor are kept (unless the Health is specified to change, such as from  Ragnaros the Firelord).
  • You are unfrozen.[234]
  • All temporary enchantments are destroyed (such as  Ice Block's temporary Immune enchantment).[235]
  • You keep your weapon, unless the replacement specifies equipping a new one, such as  Lord Jaraxxus. In that case, a new weapon is automatically equipped, destroying any previous weapon.
  • Your hero's attack is not refreshed.[236]
  • Your Hero Power is replaced with the replacement hero's, and is immediately usable again.
  • Your hero becomes the class of whatever replaced it for the purposes of  Nefarian, Discover,  Burgle etc. ( Lord Jaraxxus the Hero is Warlock. Ragnaros is Neutral and each such effect has a fallback. For example, Nefarian gives two Tail Swipes and Burgle gives two coins.[237])
    • The exception here is Netural hero cards, such as  Reno, Lone Ranger that keep the class the same as the player was before playing the hero card.

Losing the game[edit | edit source]

If/when Hearthstone runs the Death Creation Step, your current Hero is mortally wounded or pending destroy, the next time Hearthstone checks for win/loss/death you will lose the game. (Technical details: When an in-play Hero dies, the PLAYSTATE tag on the corresponding Player Entity is set to LOSING.) You still lose the game even if your Hero is later replaced.

Note that if your Hero is replaced in the same phase that it is mortally wounded, this means you do not lose the game (for a similar reason why  Truesilver Champion +  Explosive Trap lets you avoid losing the game).  Majordomo Executus's Deathrattle is an example of a way to accomplish this:

  • For example, you are at 2 Health and have a 4/1  Abomination and 9/1  Majordomo Executus played in that order, and your enemy plays  Arcane Explosion. Both your minions die, and a Death Phase queues both their Deathrattles - the Abomination's, which mortally wounds you, and Majordomo Executus's, which replaces your hero with Ragnaros. At the end of the Death Phase, Hearthstone checks for additional deaths, and since your hero is not mortally wounded at this point, you do not lose the game.
  • Consider instead, you are at 2 Health and have a 9/2  Majordomo Executus when your enemy plays  Hellfire, mortally wounding you in the Spell Text Phase. That phase ends, and Hearthstone checks for deaths, discovering both you and Majordomo Executus are dead, so a Death Phase begins. The Deathrattle will replace you with Ragnaros, but it is too late, since Hearthstone already considers you dead. Once the Death Phase is over, the game ends in your loss.[238]

Also note that killing a Hero that is no longer in-play does not result in the game ending:

  • For example, if you cast  Purified Shard, but  Violet Teacher plus  Knife Juggler kills an enemy  Majordomo Executus, replacing the enemy hero with Ragnaros before the Spell Text Phase begins, Sacrificial Pact will target and destroy the enemy hero the Hero in the Setaside Zone. No visible side-effects occur, and the game continues.[239]

Cards like  Alexstrasza that set the "remaining" health of heroes can raise the maximum Health if it is lower than the specified amount. For example, Alexstrasza can raise the Health of the Ragnaros hero from 8 to 15. It is a permanent increase.[240]

Transformation[edit | edit source]

When a minion is transformed, it is removed from play immediately and replaced by the minion it got transformed into. All enchantments, triggers, Deathrattles, etc. are detached. This does not count as dying for the purposes of on-Death triggers and Secrets and  Resurrect/ Kel'Thuzad, nor does it count as summoning for the purposes of on-summon triggers. When the outermost Phase ends or a new minion is summoned, it stops emitting any auras it had.

If you play a self-transform minion (such as  Faceless Manipulator), new After Play Phase and After Summon Phase are inserted to guarantee further triggers to run. Similarly, if your played minion is transformed by  Potion of Polymorph, later triggers work on the Sheep. For more information, see the Sequence of self-transform minions and Potion of Polymorph section.

Besides, minions resulting from non-spell transformations are counted as 'summoning a minion' and allowed to participate in the Summon Resolution Step (see the Summon Resolution Step section).

Examples:

Exceptions:

  • Cards with the Transform in hand ability do not work like usual transformation effects.
    • Example: Every time  Shifter Zerus transforms in your hand, he is still the same Entity but has changed his Card ID, and but no outside Enchantments remain attached.[241] In addition, he tracks that he should keep changing by attaching the Enchantment 'Shifting' (OG_123e) to himself. This Enchantment is detached if Shifter Zerus enters play, and copies of cards in hand do not copy this Enchantment, so cards like  Mind Vision will copy only what minion Shifter Zerus is, and the copy will not keep changing.
    • Keywords like Infuse, Corrupt, and Forge, that cause transformations in hand, do keep any Enchantments applied to the card. For example, if you play  Feat of Strength, buffing your  Strongman, then Corrupt the Strongman, the transformed version will have the buff gained from Feat of Strength.

Copy effects[edit | edit source]

Effects that create a card in your hand that is a copy of another card (such as  Mind Vision,  Thoughtsteal and  Convert) also copy all attached Enchantments, such as those that affect Health/Attack (such as from  The Mistcaller) or those that affect Mana Cost (such as from  Far Sight or  Emperor Thaurissan), unless copying to a different zone in a "backward" direction.[242]

  • Example: If a card is copied from deck to a deck, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Archbishop Benedictus)
  • Example: If a card is copied from a hand to a hand, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Mind Vision)
  • Example: If a card is copied from play to play, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Molten Reflection)
  • Example: If a card is copied from a deck to a hand, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Thoughtsteal)
  • Example: If a card is copied from a deck to play, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Mindgames)
  • Example: If a card is copied from hand to play, the copy retains enchantments. (eg.  Kobold Illusionist)
  • Example: If a card is copied from a hand to a deck, the copy does not retain enchantments. (eg.  Dead Man's Hand)
  • Example: If a card is copied from play to a deck, the copy does not retain enchantments. (eg.  Baleful Banker)
  • Example: If a card is copied from play to a hand, the copy does not retain enchantments. (eg.  Feral Gibberer)

Effects that put a minion into play that's a copy of another minion in play (such as  Echoing Ooze,  Mirror Entity,  Faceless Manipulator) copy all of the minion's state and all attached Enchantments, with a few exceptions:

  • Auras affecting the target minion aren't copied. For example, if you copy a minion that is at 1 current Health due to an allied  Stormwind Champion with  Faceless Manipulator, your copy will have 0 current Health and immediately die.[243][244]
  • Obviously, controller, zone position, zone, etc. are not copied and are overridden by the act of creating the copy.
  • Similarly, how long the original minion has been in play is not copied, meaning the copy will have summoning sickness (if not overridden by keywords like Charge, Rush, or Titan).

Health[edit | edit source]

Main article: Attribute#Health
Rule H1: Any time a minion's maximum Health is increased, its current Health is increased by the same amount.
Rule H2: However, when a minion's maximum Health is reduced, its current Health is only reduced if it exceeds the new maximum.


  • Minions track both a "current Health" and a "maximum Health" stat.
  • A 1/1 minion gaining +1 Health becomes a 1/2. There is no distinction between a minion's 'natural' Health and Health granted through auras/enchantments.
  • Effects which grant a minion +X Health actually work by increasing the minion's maximum Health; their current is automatically increased by the same amount.
  • Losing current Health due to a reduced maximum Health does not count as damage, in the same way gaining Health does not count as healing.
  • Silencing off a maximum Health reduction is equivalent to adding a maximum Health enchantment of the same value, and vice versa.[245]

Examples

  • An  Injured Blademaster with 3 current Health out of 7 maximum may be increased to 4 Health (and 8 maximum) by a friendly  Stormwind Champion. If the Champion is then silenced, the Injured Blademaster's maximum Health is returned to 7, but his current Health of 4 will not be reduced back down, since it does not exceed the maximum.
  • A  Chillwind Yeti (4/5 with max 5 Health) is played.  Crazed Alchemist gets played on it and it (becomes 5/4 with max 4 Health). 1 damage is done to it (becomes 5/3 with max 4 Health). When it then gets silenced, the Yeti becomes 4/4 with max 5 Health. This is because its maximum Health is increased from 4 to 5 by the Silence effect, so this also causes the current Health to go up from 3 to 4.
  • An  Injured Blademaster is 4/3 with a maximum Health of 7. When you cast  Divine Spirit on it, the spell increases both the current and maximum health of the Blademaster by 3 (the value of its current Health at the time of resolving the spell). This resulting Blademaster is a 4/6 with a maximum Health of 10.

Exceptions

Enchantments[edit | edit source]

Rule E1: If a minion has multiple enchantments, they are applied to the minion in order of play.


  • This is the same order shown when mousing over the minion - oldest to newest, top to bottom.[246] However, that order does not always show repeated applications of the same enchantment.

Examples:

  • You have a 6/9  Gahz'rilla and play  Lance Carrier (buffing to 8/9) then target it with a  Cruel Taskmaster. The damage and buff of Cruel Taskmaster are simultaneous, so Gahz'rilla triggers after being buffed to 10/8, doubling to 20/8. Finally, you target it with an  Abusive Sergeant, buffing it to 22/8 (returning to 20/8 after your turn ends). If enchantments were applied in any other order, the resulting Attack value would be different.[247]


Rule E2: Cards referencing their own properties take priority over cards referencing other cards' properties continuously, which then take priority over cards referencing other cards' properties in a single instance.


Examples:

  •  Eye Beam is an example of a card that references its own properties (First category).  Taintheart Tormenter is a card that continuously (Aura) references other cards' properties (Second category).  Freezing Trap is a card that references other cards' properties in a single instance (Third category).[248]
    •  Lady Anacondra is a card that continuously references other cards' properties (second category), so it will further reduce costs after  Celestial Alignment, a single instance reference (third category).
    •  Moonfang is a card that references its own properties, while  Mo'arg Artificer is a card that continuously references other cards' properties, so Moonfang will take 1 damage from spells, even when doubled by Mo'arg.
    • When cards in the same category interact with each other, then priority is based on the order the cards are played, with later cards applying on top of earlier cards.


Rule E3: When a temporary enchantment is removed from the middle of the enchantment list, the minion's state is recalculated from scratch.[249]


  • This as opposed to, for example, a 'reverse of the enchantment' enchantment being added to the end of the list.


Examples:

  • If a 6/9  Gahz'rilla has its Attack temporarily reduced to 4 by a  Shrinkmeister, and then suffers damage, the order of the enchantment stack will result in a total of 8 Attack: (((6 - 2) * 2) = 8). At the end of the turn, the Shrinkmeister's buff will be removed, resulting in the Gahz'rilla's Attack increasing not by 2, but by 4, to a total of 12: ((6 * 2) = 12). If enchantments were not dynamically recalculated, the Gahz'rilla's Attack would instead be increased to 10, since its previous net result of +4 Attack had already been established prior to the removal of the Shrinkmeister's buff.[250]


Rule E4: When a minion is Enraged, it creates an enchantment with that effect. This Enchantment is permanent and presists through other Enchantments, and is reapplied if the minion exits and re-enters a damaged state.


Examples:

  • You play an  Amani Berserker and Enrage it, giving it 5 Attack. You then heal it, making its Attack 2 again, and Enrage it a second time - the new Enrage is at the end of order of play, going after the Humility effect and it now has 4 Attack.[251]
  • You play a  Grommash Hellscream and Enrage it, giving it 10 Attack. Your opponent plays  Wave of Apathy, but as Grommash's Enrage effect references its own properties, this takes priority over cards referencing other cards' properties in a single instance, the Attack remains at 10.

Notes and Exceptions:

  • Enchantments like  Crazed Alchemist/ Reversing Switch that swap the Attack and Health of a minion are calculated by directly setting the Attack and Health to those new values (as opposed to, for example, calculating how much to change Attack and Health by and making that enchantment), and thus temporary enchantments placed prior to the stat reversal ending will have no observable effect.[252]
  • However, enchantments that double Attack like  Blessed Champion and  Gahz'rilla do not double auras, because the effect of the enchantment is to double the Attack prior to the enchantment, so when the aura is moved to the end of the list again it is not doubled.[253]
  • Enrage Enchantments do not seem to apply their effect immediately, but instead do so at the next Aura Update (Health/Attack) Step.[254]

Auras[edit | edit source]

Auras are ongoing effects tied to Entities which affect other Entities (such as cards, minions, your hero or itself) as long as the provider is in play (and not silenced). Every time Aura Update (Health/Attack) runs, Auras are processed after cards that reference their own properties, but before cards that reference other cards' properties in a single instance (See Note E2. (Note that Enchantments take affect immediately when applied, and so will briefly apply 'out of order'.)[248]

Let us review Rule 4:


Rule 4a: After the outermost Phase ends, Hearthstone does an Aura Update (Health/Attack), then does the Death Creation Step (Looks for all mortally wounded (0 or less Health)/pending destroy (hit with a destroy effect) Entities and kills them, removing them from play simultaneously), then does an Aura Update (Other). Entities that have been removed from play cannot trigger, be triggered, or emit auras, and do not take up space.
Rule 4b: Besides, whenever a minion is summoned (but not played), Hearthstone updates both kinds of Auras.
Rule 4c: Some Auras that are known to update in Aura Update (Other), such as:  Baron Rivendare,  Auchenai Soulpriest,  Brann Bronzebeard,  Mal'Ganis's Immune effect,  Prophet Velen,  Violet Illusionist,  Drakkari Enchanter,  The Four Horsemen.
Rule 4d: Enchantments apply and modify Health/Attack/Mana costs the moment they are attached. However, during Aura Update (Health/Attack), the Enchantment List is re-processed and Health/Attack Auras, having a priority later than Health/Attack Enchantments, will be moved to the end of the Enchantment List during this timing. (However, Mana Cost Auras have no special priority compared to Mana Cost Enchantments.)
  • When a minion is played, its Aura is sent for the first time before the Battlecry Phase. When a minion is stolen, it does not start emitting its aura until the outermost Phase ends, unless a new minion is summoned.[255]
  • Until the moment it is removed from play, the Entity can be brought back from 0 or less Health by healing or Health buffs, and still shares auras. This is important when multiple minions are attacked simultaneously, or when a hero dies in the same Sequence as minions with Deathrattles.
  • If you kill a minion with an aura and a minion with a Deathrattle simultaneously, non-Health effects of the aura are not active during the following Death Phase because the minion is removed from play. However, Health effects of the aura will be active, because Hearthstone does not recalculate Health changes after the minions are killed, unless a new minion is summoned.[256][257][258] However, a health-granting aura such as  Mal'Ganis can save a minion from dying, even if it enters play the same Phase the other minion was mortally wounded, because the aura recalculation is done before the Death Creation Step.[259]
  • Auras are not recalculated due to minions leaving play or due to minions being stolen in the middle of a Phase.[260]
  • Cards that double effects, like  Brann Bronzebeard,  Baron Rivendare, and  Drakkari Enchanter check before an Event starts. This means if one Battlecry/Deathrattle/End of turn effect summons them, it will not trigger again. But Deathrattles/End of turn effects that follow can benefit, for Aura (Other) is updated when you summon them.
  • Despite not visually updating, enchantments take effect the moment they are created.[261]

Notes and Exceptions

  • Sometimes there are cards that are specifically meant to take effect at a certain priority. For example,  Razorscale's effect is applied after all other cost-reducing Enchantments so that no card can cost less than 2.
  • The interaction between  Crazed Alchemist/ Reversing Switch and auras is as follows: The newly created buff directly sets Attack and Health to the opposite values (e.g. as opposed to computing an Attack change and a Health change and creating that buff) considering all auras, and then the auras are re-applied afterwards at the next State update, creating the impression that the auras have been 'counted twice'.

Silence[edit | edit source]

If a minion is being given a Health increase by an Aura such as  Stormwind Champion, then Silencing that minion will not temporarily remove the Aura's effect (which would then be added back at the next Aura Update (Health/Attack) Step).

A consequence of this effect is that if a 1/1 is buffed to 2/2 by  Stormwind Champion then damaged for 1, if it is silenced, it does not temporarily become a 1/1, get buffed by Stormwind Champion again and thus become an undamaged 2/2.[262]

However, besides not removing the effects of Auras, Silence seems to immediately remove all other properties of the minion it targets. For example, Earth Shocking a friendly  Wrath of Air Totem will remove the Spell Damage +1 before the 1 damage is dealt, and thus you will deal only 1 damage, not 2.[263]

Zones[edit | edit source]

Each Entity in a game of Hearthstone exists in one of several specific areas, called Zones.[264] In addition, it has a 'controller', which determines which half of the zone it is. Changing controller will also be referred to as changing 'zones', even though it is technically different.

Note that cards, minions, weapons, heroes, etc are all Entities. Playing a minion card moves the Entity from the Hand Zone to the Play Zone, rather than destroying the card and creating the minion, for example.

The Zones are:

Visible
Not fully visible
  • Graveyard
  • Removed from game
  • Set aside
Other
  • Invalid

Minions that are killed and removed from play have their attributes (most notably current Health) reset to a default state and are moved to the "Graveyard Zone". Spells after being cast, destroyed and equipped over weapons, dead heroes and discarded cards (from hand or from deck) also go to the "Graveyard Zone".

The "Set Aside Zone" holds cards and Entities existing in any intermediate or 'not really on the board' state, such as the three cards presented to you by  Tracking, the original minion after  Weasel Tunneler's Deathrattle (which shuffles a copy;  Malorne's Deathrattle instead shuffles the original minion), the prior state of transformed minions and  Lord Jaraxxus the minion after his Battlecry occurs.  The Amazing Reno's Battlecry works by moving all minions to the Set Aside Zone.

The "Removed From Game Zone" holds enchantments that have expired, been detached or been silenced off.

Limits[edit | edit source]

Hearthstone imposes limitations on how many Entities can be in each Zone.[264] The limitations are:

  • 5 hero zone cards per player's "Hero zone": One Quest or Questline at most, only one copy of a specific Secret or Sidequest, and any number of of copies of any other type of hero zone card.
  • 10 cards per player's hand (unless modified)
  • 7 board entitites, 1 hero, 1 weapon, 1 hero power per player's "Battlefield Zone"
    • Board entities include minions, locations, Permanents, Dormants, as well as any other entity that shares the 7 slots on the battlefield.
  • 60 cards per player's deck[265]


Rule Z0: If Hearthstone would generate a new Entity in a Zone but the limit has been reached, instead nothing happens.
  • Note that attempting to generate an Entity in a full zone does not generate and then destroy it. Rather, nothing happens.[266]

Moving between Zones[edit | edit source]

Rule Z1: When an Entity tries to move from one Zone to another, it first checks if the destination is full. If it is, it instead dies and moves to the Graveyard Zone.
Rule Z1b: If an Entity tries to move from a Zone to the Zone it's already in, do not apply Rule Z1 (such as steal effects on a minion you already control, or bounce effects on a minion already in your hand). However, other effects of the zone change still happen (such as gaining summoning sickness).
Rule Z2: If multiple Entities are moved from one Zone to another simultaneously, they check and move themselves in order of play, and thus newest minions are the ones that get Destroyed if there is insufficient room.
  • This means that after the outermost Phase ends, its Death will be resolved in the subsequent Death Phase in order of play.
  • Note that if it was a minion, its Death Event is resolved in the Zone it was in, not the Zone it tried to go to.[267] This is because the attempted Zone change did not happen.

Examples:

Exceptions:

  • Force play mechanics such as  Deathlord and  Ancestor's Call are different from steal/bounce mechanics - they do not destroy/discard the minion if there is no room in the destination zone. Instead, they do nothing.[270] (Or in the case of cards like  Varian Wrynn, the minion is moved to your hand instead of force played.)


Rule Z3: If  Kezan Mystic tries to steal a Secret but none can be stolen (because your Secret Zone is full or you already have a copy of all enemy Secrets), a random Secret is destroyed and revealed.[271][272]
Rule Z4: If you would draw a card but have no room for it, its side-effects of drawing (such as  Flame Leviathan's or  Burrowing Mine's) do not trigger, because it never entered your hand.


Examples:

  • You have  Mirror Entity up and so does your opponent. You play a  Kezan Mystic. Because the Mirror Entity cannot move to your Secret Zone, it is destroyed and revealed instead.[273] However, if the enemy also had a  Duplicate active, the Mystic would steal it with a 100% chance, since Kezan Mystic only destroys Secrets as a last resort.
  • You have 10 cards in your hand and attempt to draw  Burrowing Mine. It is revealed and discarded. You do not take 10 damage or draw a new card.

Notes:


Rule Z5: When an Entity moves from one zone to another, the minion's tags (such as Damage, Divine Shield and pending destroy) are reset to a default state.[279] The rules are as follows:
Rule Z5a: Play Zone to any other Zone: All Enchantments detached.[280][281]
Rule Z5b: Hand Zone to Play Zone: Enchantments are NOT detached.[282] (However, Mana cost related Enchantments will trigger to detach in the On Play Phase.)[283]
Rule Z5c: Deck Zone to any other Zone: Enchantments are NOT detached.[284]
  • Even though Enchantments are detached when moving between zones in this way, if you target a spell or Battlecry at a minion, but before the spell/Battlecry resolves the minion leaves play, the spell/Battlecry can put an Enchantment on the minion in an unexpected Zone (such as the Hand Zone, Graveyard Zone or Deck Zone).
    • The Enchantment will be considered to be in Play, even though the attached minion is not. As a result, the Enchantment will be able to trigger (for example if it is  Shadow Madness) and will be able to give your player Spell Damage +1 ( Velen's Chosen).

Notes:

  • Before an unknown Patch between 5.0 and 7.0, Deck Zone to any other Zone caused ALL Enchantments to detach.[285] ( The Mistcaller was actually coded to create a permanent on-draw trigger, rather than to enchant minions in your deck.)[286]

Exceptions:

  • Notably, the rule that all tags are reset when a minion changes zone seems to be implemented in an ad hoc way. For example,  Echoing Ooze's tag change is not cleared if the minion's Battlecry resolves in-hand and is played from your hand,[287] and TO_BE_DESTROYED used to not be cleared when a minion is bounced to the hand or played from the hand (causing the  Vaporize/ Freezing Trap bug) but now is cleared when the minion is played from the hand.[288]
Rule Z6: When several consequences of Death try to move the dead minion, only the first one works. Others don't work and remain hidden if it's a Secret.

Examples:

  • You play  Malorne and  Getaway Kodo, then cast  Soul of the Forest. Enemy kills your Malorne, and its Deathrattle returns it to your deck. Gateway Kodo remains hidden and Soul of the Forest summons a Treant for you. If you swap the order of Malorne an Gateway Kodo, Gateway Kodo will return Malorne to your hand. Its deathrattle doesn't trigger and Soul of the Forest also summons a Treant.

Note:

Full Zone Instant Removal[edit | edit source]

When a minion is destroyed because it tries to move to a Zone that is already full, it is not marked pending destroy. Instead, it is immediately counted as having died and sent to the Graveyard zone. However, its Death Event is correctly included in the subsequent Death Phase, and its consequences of Death queued and resolved at that timing. But since it is immediately removed from play, it is immediately uninteractible, unable to trigger or be triggered. Also, their attributes are reset when moved to the Graveyard zone, like normal death.[289]

Also, note that the order of resolution of Death Events is not the order they are created in (e.g. the order they died in), but the play order of the respective minions.[290] However,  Kel'Thuzad,  Revenge of the Wild, etc, will revive the minions in the order their Death Events were created in.[291]

It should also be noted that the Death Event is only created if the minion was in play. If it was in your Hand or in the Graveyard, it goes to the Graveyard and nothing else happens. (If it created a Death Event,  Anub'arak dying while your hand is full would create an infinite loop.)

Examples:

  • You play  Sylvanas Windrunner,  Deathlord and five other minions. Your opponent plays a  Knife Juggler. You cast  Feign Death. First, the Knife Juggler is instantly killed and removed from play, then a minion is summoned for your opponent due to the Deathlord Deathrattle, but no knife is thrown because the Knife Juggler is already not in play.[292]
  • You play a minion. Your opponent plays a  Freezing Trap. You play  Blessing of Wisdom on your minion. You wait until you have 10 cards in hand, then attack with the minion. First the Freezing Trap triggers, instantly killing and removing from play your minion. Bleesing of Wisdom does not trigger because the minion is already not in play.

Positioning[edit | edit source]

Rule P1: "Adjacent" positioning (neighbor, next to), refers to Entities on the battlefield that "touch" each other.
Rule P2: When a card deals damage to adjacent minions, this is blocked by non-minion Entities.
Rule P3: When a card "continues its path", to adjacent minions on the battlefield, it is not blocked by invalid Entities.[293]
  • Any Entity on the battlefield can be adjacent to another one, however different types of Entities cause unique interactions to happen between card effects.

Examples:

  • Your opponent controls 5 Entities, in the order of Minion, Location, Minion, Dormant, Minion. You attack with  Hollow Hound into the minion in the middle. As the adjacent Entities are not minions, Hollow Hound does not damage the two other minions on the battlefield.
    • For more information about the functionality of Dormants and others, see below.
  • You play  Rolling Fireball, targeting the left-most minion in a board of Minion, Minion, Dormant, Minion, Dormant, Dormant, Minion. As Rolling Fireballs effect "continues to move" through adjacent minions, it is not stopped by invalid Entities, and hits all four minions on the board (provided they have low enough health).

Board entities[edit | edit source]

Besides minions, other Entities can exist on the battlefield, such as locations, Permanents, and Dormant minions. The following rules apply:

Rule BE1: Despite sharing the same 7 slots on the battlefield, different Entities are not affected by the same effects.
Rule BE2: Permanents and Dormant minions are not considered minions and cannot be affected by any effects from either player unless otherwise specified.

Examples:

  • When a card says "Destroy all minions.", e.g.  Plague of Death, this does not destroy locations, Permanents, or Dormant minions, as none of these are considered minions.
  • Locations, Permanents, and Dormant minions can only be the targets of effects if that is specified. For example, a randomly casted  Fireball cannot target any of these Entities, as they are not characters, do not have health, and cannot take damage.

Mana Crystals and mana costs[edit | edit source]

Rule M1: Your current mana is not capped in either direction. Positive current mana goes above the player's maximum mana, and negative current mana is displayed as 0.
Rule M2: Your maximum mana (number of Mana Crystals) is at most 10 unless changed, and at least 0.
Rule M3: Your current/pending Overloaded Mana Crystals has no upper limit.
Rule M4: Gaining or losing maximum mana has no effect on your pending/current Overload.
Rule M5: The mana cost of a card has no lower limit. Negative mana costs are displayed as, and use, 0, but help to counteract mana cost increases.[294][295]
Rule M6: When multiple effects change the cost of a card or your Hero Power, they are applied in order of play (Auras and Enchantments having no special priority).
Rule M7: When an effect refers to the cost of casting a spell (such as  Summoning Stone or  Gazlowe), it means the amount of mana you paid to cast it, not the base mana cost.
Rule M8: Your maximum mana can be changed by cards that specify so, such as  Wildheart Guff or  Audio Amplifier.


Examples:

  • You have an  Innervate in hand and 10/10 Mana Crystals. Playing Innervate will make you go to 11/10.
  • If you have 10 Mana Crystals and are currently Overloaded for 10, you can still gain mana with  Innervate.
  • An  Unstable Portal gives you a  Wisp. Because this card normally costs 0 mana, it is discounted to -3 but displayed as 0. However, if your enemy plays four Mana Wraiths, the card costs 1 instead of 4 due to this hidden negative cost. ( Emperor Thaurissan can similarly reduce your card's cost below 0.)[296]
  • If your opponent plays  Loatheb followed by  Millhouse Manastorm, your spell cards cost 0 mana. However, if he plays Millhouse Manastorm followed by Loatheb, your spell cards cost 5 mana, due to order of play.[297]
  • You can use  Felguard's effect to reach 0/0 Mana Crystals, and then  The Coin to reach 1/0 Mana Crystals.[298] No matter how many further Felguards you play, you will have 1/1 Mana Crystals your next turn.
  • On turn 2, with 2/2 mana, you play two Dust Devils, giving yourself pending Overload of 4. The next turn, you have -1/3 mana (displayed as 0/3). If you play  The Coin, you go from -1/3 to 0/3.
  • If you Overload yourself for 11 with 10 maximum mana, the next turn you have to play  The Coin twice to reach 1/10 mana.[299]
  • If you Overload yourself for 10 with 8 maximum mana, the next turn you are at -1/9 mana. If you play  Lava Shock for 0, you go straight to 9/9 mana, because -1+10=9.[300]
  • If you play  Aviana then  Naga Sea Witch, your minions cost 5 Mana. If you play Naga Sea Witch then Aviana, your minions cost 1 Mana. But in addition to this, if you play  Aviana after  Emperor Thaurissan discounts your cards your minions will cost 1, but if Emperor Thaurissan triggers after Aviana enters play, Emperor Thaurissan's effect will be processed second and your minions will cost 0. This is different to how Health/Attack Enchantments and Auras work - all Health/Attack Auras are processed after Health/Attack Enchantments regardless of play order, but Mana Auras and Enchantments are processed together in play order.
  • Similarly,  Maiden of the Lake and  Saboteur affect the cost of your Hero Power in the order they were originally played in, with no priority over one another.
  • You gain pending overload of 1 and then destroy a friendly  Darnassus Aspirant. Despite the visual appearance of destroying a pending locked mana crystal, next turn you will be overloaded for 1 correctly.[301]

Why available mana can be negative[edit | edit source]

Tags are values on Entities (such as minions, players and cards) that can have any value between 0 and 2^31 - 1. if their final value would be negative in 32 bit signed arithmetic, it is instead assigned to 0. The tags related to mana and mana costs are as follows:

MAXRESOURCES (player): largest value RESOURCES and 'available mana' can be; it is typically set to 10 unless changed.
RESOURCES (player): number of permanent Mana Crystals (also called 'maximum mana').
RESOURCES_USED (player): number of permanent Mana Crystals which are empty or Overloaded.
TEMP_RESOURCES (player): number of temporary Mana Crystals (such as due to  The Coin).

When you pay mana, TEMP_RESOURCES is deducted before RESOURCES_USED is increased by what's left over.
Spend mana sets TEMP_RESOURCES to 0 and RESOURCES_USED to the value of RESOURCES.

OVERLOAD_OWED (player): total pending Overload for the next turn.
OVERLOAD_LOCKED (player): current Overload.

At the start of turn OVERLOAD_LOCKED and RESOURCES_USED are set to the value of OVERLOAD_OWED, and OVERLOAD_OWED is set to 0.
Unlocking Overloaded Mana Crystals (such as with  Lava Shock) will set OVERLOAD_OWED to 0, decrease OVERLOAD_LOCKED to 0, and decrease RESOURCES_USED by the same amount.

NUM_RESOURCES_SPENT_THIS_GAME (player): total mana paid this entire game.
OVERLOAD_THIS_GAME (player): total mana Overloaded this entire game.

COST (card or Hero Power): how much mana you will pay when playing this card.
OVERLOAD (card): can be 1 or 0, indicating if this card has the Overload ability or not.
OVERLOAD_OWED (card): how much pending Overload playing this card will give you.

'Available mana' does not exist as a tag, but is calculated as RESOURCES + TEMP_RESOURCES - RESOURCES_USED.
Because it doesn't exist as a tag, 'available mana' can go negative (such as if you Overload more mana than you will have the next turn): although it will still be displayed as 0 in the GUI, it will affect mana-generating effects like those granting temporary Mana Crystals.

Example: If you have 10 Mana Crystals and 11 current Overload, your mana counter will display 0/10 even if your 'available mana' is 10 - 11 = -1. If you play  Innervate it will correctly display 0/10, not 1/10.

Conversely, because COST is a tag, even if you reduce a card or Hero Power's cost below 0, its COST will be clamped to 0, so you won't 'gain mana' by playing it.

Drawing a Card[edit | edit source]

Rule DC1: When you draw a card, if you have room, it enters your hand and is immediately resolved (according to the below rules). When multiple cards would be drawn simultaneously, the number of cards that would be drawn is calculated, then each one is drawn and resolved in some sequential order. (For example,  Coldlight Oracle always draws two cards for its controller first.)
Rule DC2: Some effects ( Chromaggus,  Shadowfiend) trigger when a card is drawn. They trigger in order of play. Then, the card may have an effect when drawn ( Sea Reaver,  Flame Leviathan,  Nerubian Ambush!,  Burrowing Mine, Fatigue, etc). This effect resolves now. When this is complete, the card draw has been resolved.
Rule DC3: Some effects ( Gnomish Experimenter,  Holy Wrath,  Far Sight,  Call Pet) draw a card, then do something with that card. These effects wait for the card draw to resolve before continuing. Holy Wrath does require the card to successfully enter your hand.[302]
Rule DC4: A card is only considered drawn if it moves from the top of your deck to your hand. If your hand is full, the card is not drawn, nor is it discarded (such as for  Tiny Knight of Evil or  Fist of Jaraxxus), it just goes to the Graveyard.
Rule DC5: An effect is not considered to have drawn a card if it was drawn indirectly (for example, if  Varian Wrynn draws  Nerubian Ambush! which itself draws a minion, the minion is not put in play).


Examples

  • You play  Chromaggus and  Gnomish Experimenter, set both to 2 Health, then draw  Flame Leviathan. First Chromaggus triggers and puts a copy of Flame Leviathan in your hand. Then the drawn Flame Leviathan triggers and deals 2 damage, mortally wounding both Chromaggus and Gnomish Experimenter. Then Gnomish Experimenter triggers and turns the drawn Flame Leviathan into a Chicken. Finally the Phase is over and death processing happens, killing and removing from play Chromaggus and Gnomish Experimenter.[303][304]
  • You play  Varian Wrynn. The first card is  Nerubian Ambush!, which triggers and draws a  Boulderfist Ogre. Because Ambush! drew the Boulderfist Ogre, Varian Wrynn does not count it as one of his 3 cards or put it into play.[305]
  • You play  Shadowfiend and  Chromaggus, and draw a  Leper Gnome. First Shadowfiend discounts the drawn Leper Gnome to 0, then Chromaggus adds a 1 cost Leper Gnome to your hand. (Chromaggus similarly does not copy the cost reductions of  Call Pet or  Far Sight.)[306][307]
  • You play  Shadowfiend,  Mechwarper then  Holy Wrath. The drawn card is a  Spider Tank. Shadowfiend triggers and reduces it to 2 cost, then Holy Wrath continues and deals 2 damage to its target. Finally the Spell Text Phase is over, Auras update and the Spider Tank now costs 1 Mana.[308][309]
  • You play  Holy Wrath. The card drawn is  Nerubian Ambush!, which triggers and draws a  Boulderfist Ogre, then Holy Wrath continues and deals 3 damage (the cost of Ambush!).
  • If you have 9/10 cards in your hand when  Gnomish Experimenter's Battlecry resolves, and you also have  Chromaggus in play, since the drawn card enters your hand before any on-draw triggers run,  Chromaggus won't put a copy of the minion in your hand. Then  Gnomish Experimenter triggers and transforms the topdecked card.[310]

Exceptions:

  • Put into hand cards do interact with on-draw triggers.[311]
  • Cards like  Daring Reporter has the same priority as 'the card may have an effect when drawn'. For example, if  Sea Reaver is drawn, the order of triggering of Daring Reporter and Sea Reaver is determined by the Dominant Player Bug.[312]
  • The expression 'Auras that change cards' cost don't affect the damage dealt by  Holy Wrath' is not completely right. That is because Aura Update is not run in-between. You control a  Emerald Hive Queen and  Dragon Egg, and your  Holy Wrath draws a  Flame Leviathan. Flame Leviathan first deals 2 damage to all characters, causing Dragon Egg summoning a Black Whelp. The cost now is affected by Emerald Hive Queen, and Holy Wrath deals 9 damage.[313]

Damage and Healing[edit | edit source]

Rule DH1: When an area of effect Damage or Healing effect happens, all of the Damage/Healing Events are created in play order, then all of the Damage/Healing Events are resolved (queuing and resolving triggers) in play order.
Rule DH2a: When a Damage/Healing Event is created: Apply  Auchenai Soulpriest. Then apply Spell Damage/Hero Power damage buffs. Then apply damage-doubling effects like  Prophet Velen. If the target is Immune or the Damage Event's proposed damage is 0, the Damage Event is prevented. Then if the target has Divine Shield, the Divine Shield is removed and the Damage Event's proposed damage is reduced to 0. Then queue and resolve Predamage triggers (see Rule DH7). Then the Character's current Health+Armor is reduced by the Damage Event's proposed damage. (If the target is affected by Commanding Shout, its current Health is prevented from dropping below 1.)
Rule DH2b: When a Damage/Healing Event is resolved: If it was prevented, or if it did not change the Character's current Health+Armor total (including due to Divine Shield and  Commanding Shout), it will not run any triggers. Otherwise, they queue and resolve in play order.[314]


Rule DH3: Some Damage effects sound like they should be area of effect (and therefore create all Damage Events before any of them resolve), but actually resolve each Damage Event as soon as it is created in play order. Some examples of these are:  Lightning Storm,  Elemental Destruction,  Dark Iron Skulker[315],  Lightbomb[316]. However, these effects still figure out the set of minions they will damage before beginning to damage anything.
Rule DH4: Two-step spells (such as  Light of the Naaru,  Mortal Coil,  Bane of Doom,  Slam,  Bash,  Bouncing Blade) that create one or more Damage/Healing Events before then querying the target's condition, must resolve the Damage Event BEFORE they query the target's condition.
Rule DH4b: Some other Two-step spells exist, for example:  Holy Nova creates and Resolves all Damage Events, then creates and resolves all Healing Events (even if the Healing Events are turned into Damage Events by  Auchenai Soulpriest).[317][318]  Blizzard creates and resolves all Damage events, then freezes all enemy minions (even undamaged ones).  Cone of Cold creates and resolves all Damage events, then freezes the minions it damaged.
Rule DH4c: Some spells like  Imp-losion deal damage then queries how much damage was dealt. Divine Shield sets the damage dealt to 0 and Immune prevents the damage, however  Commanding Shout does not modify how much damage was considered to be dealt - therefore the normal number of Imps will be summoned.[319]
Rule DH5: When a minion is the source of a Damage Event, even if the Damage Event's proposed damage is 0, it loses Stealth. (If the Damage Event is prevented, it does not lose Stealth.)[320][321]


  • (Your Heroes are older than every minion. The Hero of the Dominant Player is older than the Hero of the Secondary Player.)
  • Note that minions do not die the moment they are mortally wounded (0 or less Health). For more information, see Death Phases and consequences of Death.
  • Note that damage from two Characters engaging in Combat is not based on play order, - the attacker always damages the defender first. For more information, see Combat.
  • Note that Immune also prevents enemy targeting, like Stealth. It does not prevent any other kind of interaction, including healing.
  • Note that Stealth is also lost when a minion declares an attack, even if the combat is cancelled or it would fail to create a Damage Event due to losing all its Attack. For more information, see Combat.
  • The definition of 'apply health as damage' (e.g.  Auchenai Soulpriest) is 'If the Event's source's controller also controlled an unsilenced Auchenai Soulpriest since the last Aura Update (Other) step, replace the Healing Event with a Damage Event having proposed damage equal to its proposed healing'. (The definition of 'apply Prophet Velens' is similar.)


Examples:

  • If you cast  Circle of Healing with damaged minions and Shadowboxers in play, all of the minions will be healed before the Shadowboxers trigger on each Healing Event and deal damage, preventing them from damaging a minion that would later be healed.
  • If you cast  Flamestrike while your opponent has two Armorsmiths, the Armorsmiths will be mortally wounded but remain in play, triggering on each Damage Event and giving your opponent's Hero 4 Armor before the spell resolves and the Armorsmiths die and are removed from play.
  • If you play  Light of the Naaru, restoring an enemy minion to full health, but also triggering an allied  Shadowboxer to damage the target enemy minion, Light of the Naaru's second step then runs and sees the target is damaged, summoning a  Lightwarden.[322]
  • If you cast  Holy Nova while your opponent has an  Imp Gang Boss and a  Knife Juggler, because the Damage Events are Created and Resolved before the Healing Events are Created and Resolved, the extra damage caused by the knife from the summoned Imp may be healed by the second step of  Holy Nova.


Predamage Triggers[edit | edit source]

Rule DH7: Just before a Damage Event is created, Predamage triggers will queue and resolve in play order. They will stop triggering if the Damage Event is prevented, as there is nothing to do. Some examples include  Bolf Ramshield,  Ice Block,  Animated Armor.[323][324] Additionally, Animated Armor has an early priority.[325]
Rule DH7b:  Bolf Ramshield's effect is to prevent the Damage Event, then create a Damage Event whose source is still the original source but target is Bolf Ramshield, and whose proposed damage is the same as the original Damage Event's.
Rule DH7c:  Animated Armor's effect is to lower the Damage Event's proposed damage to 1.
Rule DH7d:  Ice Block's effect is, if the Damage Event's proposed damage is currently greater than or equal to your Hero's current Health, to prevent the Damage Event and create an Enchantment attached to your Hero which says "Become Immune until the turn ends."



Examples:

  • If you play  Ice Block and  Animated Armor, your Hero is at 4 Health and your opponent deals 4 damage to your Hero, regardless of order of play, Animated Armor triggers and reduces the incoming damage to 1 before Ice Block checks for the damage being lethal (and since it isn't, it remains intact).
  • If you have multiple Bolf Ramshields in play, the first one to enter play will trigger and intercept the damage when your Hero takes damage.
  • If you have  Animated Armor and  Bolf Ramshield, regardless of order of play, your Bolf Ramshield will intercept 1 damage.
  • If you adapt  Bolf Ramshield to gain Poisonous, it won't be killed by its own effect.

Notes:

Multiplied damage[edit | edit source]

Rule DH8: Cards with damage-multiplying effects multiply the proposed damage of Damage Events targeting the relevant character (whenever queried by a Predamage trigger or when the character takes the damage).


  • In the case of  Cursed Blade:
    • The final damage you take will be doubled, after all modifiers (like Spell Damage,  Prophet Velen and  Fallen Hero/ Arcane Amplifier) are taken into account.
    • If you have Cursed Blade and  Ice Block, Ice Block will take into account the double damage from Cursed Blade when deciding to trigger or not.
    • If you have Cursed Blade and  Bolf Ramshield, Bolf Ramshield takes double damage when intercepting, regardless of play order.[328]
    • If you have Cursed Blade and  Animated Armor, Animated Armor will set the Damage Event's damage to 1, but Cursed Blade's effect will double its damage whenever it is read, so you will still take 2 damage (Bolf will still intercept 2 damage, etc). (In addition, normally Animated Armor does not trigger if you take 1 damage, but Cursed Blade's effect doubles the reported damage to 2, so Animated Armor will trigger for no effect in this scenario.)[329]

Death Event Cache[edit | edit source]

Rule DEC1: Hearthstone keeps track of every Death Event that has been created this game in the Death Event Cache. It remembers the Entity ID that died, its controller when it died, and what turn it died on.
Rule DEC2: If the same minion dies more than once (for example if it's the same  Malorne), each Death Event is added to the Death Event Cache separately.
Rule DEC3: Cards that check if a minion has died this turn/this game ( Feugen,  Stalagg) and cards that resurrect minions that died this turn/this game ( Resurrect,  Kel'Thuzad,  N'Zoth, the Corruptor, etc) do not check the Graveyard Zone. They check the Death Event Cache.
Rule DEC4: Resurrect effects summon new, fresh copies of minions based on the Death Event(s) they select, and do not remove the Death Event from the Death Event Cache. Except for  Kel'Thuzad,  Revenge of the Wild, etc, which use order of play, Death Events are selected in random order.
  • If a minion goes to the Graveyard Zone in any way besides dying (milled from deck, discarded from hand, etc) it never died, so it does not get added to the Death Event Cache.
  • Entries in the Death Event Cache are never removed, even if a Resurrect effect selects that Death Event.
  • Minions that leave the Graveyard Zone don't remove their Death Event from the Death Event Cache (for example if it's  Malorne,  Anub'arak or  The Skeleton Knight).
  • The Entity ID is used to find out what kind of card died. For exactly one card -  Shifter Zerus - the Card ID it was when it died might not be the Card ID it is now. It will use the Card ID it is now.

Examples:

  • You play and kill your  Malorne 3 times, then play  N'Zoth, the Corruptor. Three Malornes will be summoned by N'Zoth's Battlecry.[330]  Resurrect and  Kel'Thuzad also bring back Malorne.[331]
  • Your  C'Thun is discarded, milled, Entombed/Mind Controlled and dies for your opponent or Polymorphed and dies as a Sheep. You play  Doomcaller. You never had a  C'Thun die, so nothing happens.
  • Your  C'Thun dies. You play two Doomcallers. Each one shuffles a  C'Thun into your deck.
  • You play three Kel'Thuzads and kill one and end your turn. Each living KT sees the KT that died this turn and resurrects a copy of it, so you now have four KTs in play.
  • You play a minion, give it a Deathrattle (such as  Ancestral Spirit) and it dies. You play  N'Zoth, the Corruptor. The minion is not brought back to life, because the Death Event Cache does not record the state it died in, only what kind of minion it was.
  • Using  Violet Teacher and  Knife Juggler,  Entomb targets a  Shifter Zerus that dies before Entomb resolves. When this Shifter Zerus is later drawn, it is allowed to transform into another minion. When  Resurrect or  N'Zoth, the Corruptor is played and considers Shifter Zerus's Death Event, it will look at what Card ID Shifter Zerus is now, and thus resurrect the minion it has changed into in the hand.[332]
  • If you play and kill  Malorne, replay Malorne, silence Malorne then play  N'Zoth, the Corruptor, a new Malorne will be summoned. This is because the Card ID of the Entity ID that died, not the current state including silence, added Deathrattles, etc, is checked to determine what to resummon.[333]
  •  Resurrect effects will resummon  Weasel Tunneler for who it originally died for, not for who controls the Weasel Tunneler now. This is because the Death Event Cache records the controller at the time of death.[334]

Spell Damage[edit | edit source]

Spell Damage is unlike Auras - it does not update when each outermost Phase resolves and Hearthstone updates Auras. Rather, it updates constantly - it is always the most up-to-date value.

Examples

Notes

  •  Jungle Moonkin gives your opponent Spell Damage +2 via an indirect mechanism.

Extra Turns and Temporary Effects[edit | edit source]

There are various effects that give players extra turns, and these are some example functions:

  •  Temporus's battlecry gives your opponent an extra turn before his next turn starts, and gives you an extra turn after a series of opponent's turns (perhaps more than 2).
  •  Time Warp gives you a number of extra turns after this one ends equal to the amount of times you played Time Warp that turn.

In general, temporary effects only work in one turn. However, effects that read 'In your opponent's next turn...' keep working until the end of a series of opponent's turns， including  Millhouse Manastorm,  Saboteur and  Loatheb.[338]

Examples: (A refers to your turn, and B refers to opponent's turn.)

  • You have  Brann Bronzebeard and play  Temporus and  Time Warp. Regardless of play order, the following turns are ABBBAAA.
  • You play  Temporus and then your opponent also plays Temporus. The following turns are BBAAABB (including your opponent's this turn).

Visual appearance of Player Actions[edit | edit source]

When you perform a Player Action, Hearthstone processes the entire outcome server-side and then slowly displays the result in client-side animation. With the exception of conceding, Hearthstone shows the initial result of all Player Actions (summoning a minion to the board, flipping the Hero Power, flipping the End Turn button, etc) but in reality, Hearthstone has processed your Player Action at the appropriate time server-side - after all previous Player Actions have resolved.

You can tell when Hearthstone server-side finished processing the outcome because your valid Player Actions will be highlighted in green once more (and if you have none, you will hear 'Job's done'). This allows you to tell ahead of time things like 'Did this minion die?' (that minion is not highlighted green) or 'Did the game just end?' (no actions are presented)[339] or 'Are all enemy minions dead?' (an enemy minion targeting spell in your hand is not highlighted green). The only reason to wait through animations is if a randomized outcome is important for your decision making - such as the Deathrattle of  Piloted Shredder.

Some consequences and oddities of Player Actions ignoring animations:

  • If a  Mechwarper is alive, even if the mana cost has not been updated, Mechs that you can play are highlighted in green.[340]
  • If you return a minion to your hand such as with a  Youthful Brewmaster, it will be highlighted in green even before visually turning into a card. If you interact with it, the game will play it from your hand, a useful time-saver.
  • If you draw cards and immediately hear 'Job's done' you know none of them are playable this turn.
  • Technically you can target an enemy minion spawned by a Deathrattle, play a card drawn, etc the moment the server has processed the outcome - but until the animations of client-side Hearthstone render it, there is no way for the user to do so without using an external program or a hack.
  • "Cast X random spells" effects can make visual updates based on changes in available mana before the actual display of available mana is updated. Example:  Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron casts  Shadowform as its first spell, replacing the Hero Power with  Mind Spike. The new Hero Power is immediately highlighted green despite the client still displaying 0 available mana, because the Puzzle Box will cast  Nourish later, generating 2 available mana.[341]

Turn timers[edit | edit source]

Whenever a player's turn begins (including the Mulligan turn), the Hearthstone server gives them 75 seconds from that exact point in time until their turn ends. (It was 90 seconds during Beta.) This time limit totally ignores animations because the server does not simulate them. This means that the animation of start of turn triggers, drawing a card at the start of your turn, the 'Your turn' splash, etc. eat into the 75 seconds.

In addition to this, when the Server sees that the end turn button is hit (or the timer expires), the other player's turn immediately begins - even if one or both player's clients is still animating the results of player actions taken during that turn. Again, this is because the server does not simulate or care about actions. This means that if you queue up many long, complex animations then hit the end turn button before they finish, all of that animation time eats into your opponent's 75 seconds.

Being able to 'eat into' following turn timers has no upper bound - if you queue so many animations that 75 seconds pass after ending your turn, your opponent's entire next turn will be skipped, and it will be your turn again. If you queue an arbitrarily large amount of animation time, an arbitrary amount of turns may be skipped, causing an extreme amount of graphical effects and glitches when Hearthstone tries to show the results of all the turns being skipped at once.[342]

Nozdormu and AFK

 Nozdormu's effect is to reduce turn timers from 75 seconds to 15 seconds. (This is implemented by changing the TIMEOUT tag between these two numbers - whenever it changes, the timer is reset to about its full remaining value, allowing you to make a 5 minute long turn by repeatedly playing and removing from play Nozdormu.[343]) Otherwise, all the rules are the same. But because it is a lot easier to queue 15 seconds of animations after your turn, it is a lot easier to skip your opponent's turn with Nozdormu out than without.

Notably, because AIs instantly queue all their actions and end their turn, without having to watch any animations, if  Nozdormu gets into play while fighting against an AI, defeat due to every one of your turn timers being eaten up is almost certain.

AFK is an Enchantment a player gets if on their last turn they performed no player actions, not even hitting the end turn button. It reduces that player's turn timer to 10 seconds until the next time they take a player action.

Speeding up animations and countering Nozdormu

However, there is a way to speed up animations in Hearthstone. Whenever your opponent plays a card or activates a Hero Power, a Secret is revealed or  Cursed! triggers in your hand, you can click on the big card pop-up in the top left of your client, making it vanish instantly and the following animation start immediately. Each time you do this, it saves 1-2 seconds, and doing this when  Nozdormu is in play will counter tactics where your opponent attempts to eat into your entire turn timer, giving you just enough time to perform player actions during your turn, and perhaps destroy Nozdormu to end the combo.

Slush time

An undocumented mechanic of Hearthstone is slush time, which is added to the next turn timer whenever certain animations happened on the previous turn. Currently, it is unknown what the full list of animations that add slush time is, and how much slush time they add, but two are known:  Youthful Brewmaster effects and Joust effects add their full animation length as slush time, preventing  Nozdormu in combination with these cards from being used to eat the turn timers of, and thus defeat, players unaware of the 'card clicking' trick.[344][345]

There is a tag called TURN_TIMER_SLUSH, but it is currently not displayed in power.log.

Glossary[edit | edit source]

  • Character: A minion or hero.
  • Entity: Anything that exists in the game of Hearthstone - a character, weapon, location Hero Power, hero zone card, card, Deathrattle, triggered effect, Enchantment, Aura, spell being played or disembodied 'effect' (such as  Loatheb's cost increase that lasts a turn or  Dragon Consort's cost reduction that lasts indefinitely - while invisible, they have similar properties as other Entities, for example the order you play  Loatheb and  Millhouse Manastorm in is relevant).
  • Player Action: Attacking with a character, playing a card, using a Hero Power, hitting the end turn button or conceding.
  • Trigger: Anything that triggers in reaction an Event - any triggered effect, Secret or Deathrattle.
  • Event: A single change in the game state. Can have triggers Queued in reaction to it - a Death being considered, Healing, Damage, Summon, drawing a card, a specific named Phase of a Sequence and so on.
  • Resolve: When Hearthstone finishes processing all consequences (except Deaths, which do not happen until the outermost Phase ends) of an Event. Defined recursively - For example, if a  Knife Juggler's trigger triggers a  Grim Patron, the  Knife Juggler's trigger is not resolved until the  Grim Patron's trigger and all its consequences are resolved first. Can be nested arbitrarily deep.
  • Order of play: The order in which each Entity was put into play. Ties are broken between Entities by ordering them from first to most recent to enter play.
    • More specifically, each Entity has a timestamp associated with it. The timestamp is updated every time the Entity is generated or moved to the Play zone.
    • Attached Enchantments use their own timestamp, not the timestamp of the Entity they're attached to. This is used for when their trigger triggers ( Shadow Madness,  Power Overwhelming, etc) and also for when their Enchantment is processed in the Enchantment List.
    • There is only one exception to the above rule - the Enchantments created by an Aura (such as the +1/+1 on each other minion due to Stormwind Champion, or the +5 Mana Cost on each enemy spell due to Loatheb's Enchantment) have the timestamp of the Aura bearing Entity, NOT the timestamp of the individual Aura-effect Enchantments entering play.
    • In addition, note that Priority takes precedence over Order of play, and the Dominant Player Bug takes precedence over Priority.


  • Phase: A Phase begins when multiple Events are raised simultaneously, or when multiple triggers respond simultaneously to a common Event, or as part of a Sequence. (Phases can be nested.) When the outermost Phase resolves, we run the following Steps: Aura Update (Health/Attack), Death Creation Step, Aura Update (Other). Then if any Deaths occurred, a Death Phase starts, resolving Death Events in order of play, for each one queuing and resolving all on-death triggers (including Deathrattles and Secrets). Since a Death Phase is an outermost Phase, it will have its own Steps after it resolves, and can be followed by another Death Phase, and so on. This continues until there are no new Deaths - then we finally proceed to the next named Phase of the Sequence.


  • Step: Not a Phase. (Everything that is called a Phase is called a Phase because of the steps that run after it, if it's the outermost Phase. If we don't do that, it's called a Step.)
  • Sequence: A series of outermost Steps/Phases that must be resolved one after the other.


  • Aura Update: Refers to both Aura Update (Health/Attack) and Aura Update (Other) happening. (Sometimes in Hearthstone these can happen without an intervening Death Creation Step, such as between the two Battlecries when  Brann Bronzebeard is in effect.)
  • Aura Update (Health/Attack): Runs before the Death Creation Step after each outermost Phase resolves, and at a few other timings. Health/Attack Auras are recalculated, and moved in each Entity's Enchantment List to the end. (Note that Enchantments like  Equality apply immediately, and therefore may briefly apply 'out of order'.) Then, every Entity's Health and Attack values are recalculated.
  • Death Creation Step: Hearthstone looks for all Characters that are mortally wounded or pending destroy and, in order of play, sends them from play to the graveyard and creates Death Events for each. (During the next Death Phase, the Death Events will be resolved in order of play.)
  • Aura Update (Other): Runs after the Death Creation Step after each outermost Phase, and at a few other timings. The following Auras are examples of ones that update:  Baron Rivendare,  Auchenai Soulpriest,  Brann Bronzebeard,  Mal'Ganis's Immune effect,  Prophet Velen.
  • Priority: A small number of triggers and auras have a Priority that makes them always act first or act last, ignoring normal order of play. Any card can be set to have any priority and it depends on what the designer intends to have happen. There is a base set of rules that the server uses to determine order of execution, but on top of this is a layer that allows cards to execute at earlier or later priorities relative to other cards of the same type. Most cards will not utilize the priority layer and will execute in the order they were played. For more information on Priority, see the official dev comments made by Software Engineer syah_hs here.
  • Queuing: At the start of a Phase its simultaneous Events or triggers are queued first by Priority then by Order of play. After Queuing resolves the Queue cannot be added to, removed from or re-arranged. However, no matter how recently a trigger or Secret appeared prior to a Queue, it may be included. Events inside of a Phase may have their own Queues.
  • Targeting condition: For a targeting Battlecry, Spell or Hero Power, a condition required to be true of the target when you consciously take the action. (If the condition is later invalid, due to the target changing, triggers changing attributes of the target or the action being copied by  Djinni of Zephyrs, the targeting condition is not checked a second time.) (Note that targeting conditions prevent targeting. As a result, spells that say 'X. If Y, Z.' like  Demonfire, are checked when the spell resolves, not as a targeting condition.)
  • Queuing condition: A condition that is checked when the queue is being populated; if false, the trigger is not added to the queue.
  • Trigger condition: A condition that is checked just before the trigger begins to resolve.
  • Abort: A Queued trigger may decide not to go off if at the time of triggering it is no longer valid or not useful enough.  Freezing Trap aborts if its target is mortally wounded or removed from play,  Noble Sacrifice aborts if there's no room,  Grim Patron aborts if it is now mortally wounded,  Mimiron's Head aborts if there are no longer 3 Mechs and so on.
  • Mortally wounded: An Entity reduced to 0 or less Health/Durability this Phase. Negative/hindering effects like  Knife Juggler and most negative/hindering Secrets check for mortally wounded minions and ignore them/do not target them. For more information, see Death.
  • Pending destroy: An Entity hit with a destroy effect/equipped over this Phase. Effects that ignore/include mortally wounded also ignore/include pending destroy.
  • Death, kill: Once the outermost Phase resolves, during the Death Creation Step, Hearthstone kills all mortally wounded and pending destroy Entities, rendering them dead. Because a Death is an Event, a new Phase begins where all simultaneous Deaths are Queued. Dead characters instantly cease to exist - removed from play, unable to trigger or be triggered, all attached enchantments and auras instantly removed. (While triggered effects like  Knife Juggler appear to ignore 0 Health characters, this is because they are specifically coded to ignore them - they are not dead yet for all intents and purposes.)[346] Death is the only Event that is not resolved in the middle of a Phase.
  • In play: An Entity that is currently on the board, i.e. not dead. (Can trigger and be triggered, applies its Auras to other Entities, interact and can be interacted with, and takes up space e.g. for the purposes of attempting to summon new minions/put into play another Secret).


  • Force play: Cards like  Deathlord,  Voidcaller, and  Ancestor's Call do this. The moving of a minion from your hand OR deck into play. Does nothing (Rather than kill the minion) if there is no room.
  • Forced Death Phase: Cards like  Poison Seeds,  Reincarnate and  Mimiron's Head do this. A Death Phase that forcefully appears inside of a Phase, therefore any Deaths caused by it are not resolved until the outermost Phase ends.
  • Summon Resolution Step: A step at the end of an outermost Phase, surrounded by two instances of Aura Update (Health/Attack) (and therefore before the subsequent Death Creation Step) where cards like  Undertaker,  Commanding Shout and  Knight of the Wild trigger on the Summon Events of minions that have entered play since the last Summon Resolution Step.


  • Humble safeguard: Minions are not allowed to trigger on themselves entering play. (Note that they can trigger on consequences of themselves entering play - for example if you play  Illidan Stormrage followed by  Knife Juggler, the Knife Juggler will trigger off of the Flame of Azzinoth created by Illidan Stormrage in reaction to itself being played.)
  • Double safeguard: Minions are not allowed to trigger twice on the same Event.[347] In addition, Forgetful and  Mogor the Ogre can't trigger on a given attack if they failed the 50% chance already.


  • Tag: Describes one aspect of the state/identity of an Entity. Has a name (such as ZONE) and a value (which can be an integer, boolean (0 or 1) or string).
  • Tag numerical limits: 32-bit signed integers are used to represent the numerical values of Tags. (Examples of numerical valued tags are HEALTH, ATTACK and DAMAGE.) These range from [-2^31, 2^31 - 1] while the value of a Tag is being recalculated. However, if a Tag would be assigned a negative value, it is assigned 0 instead. Examples:
    • If you have a  Lorewalker Cho with 2^30 HEALTH and cast  Divine Spirit on it, its HEALTH becomes 0 (because 2^31 assigned to a 32-bit signed integer overflows to a negative number, which is capped to 0).
    • If you play  Shrinkmeister on a  Wisp, it becomes a 0/1. If you end your turn, it becomes a 1/1. If instead you target it with  Abusive Sergeant, it becomes a 1/1 also.
    • If you have a  Wisp in your hand and a  Pint-Sized Summoner and  Mana Wraith in play, regardless of order of play, it costs 0 Mana to play.
    • If you have a  Gahz'rilla and double its Attack enough times, the Attack value will overflow and become negative, meaning that when ATTACK's value is assigned it will be assigned a 0. In addition, adding small amounts of Attack (such as with  Abusive Sergeant) do nothing, as the intermediate calculated value is still negative. Double the attack even more, and it will occasionally stop being negative and start being a very large positive value again.[348][349] Finally after enough doublings,, it will eventually become 0 due to the limits of 32-bit arithmetic, and after this, adding Attack with Enchantments will succeed.
    • Using many Prophet Velens, you can double the damage of a spell so much that its final damage becomes nonsensical unless you use the properties of 32 bit arithmetic to calculate it.[350]
    • If you have two minions with exactly 2^30 Health, and play a  Void Terror between them, it will create an Enchantment that gives exactly 2^31 Health... except that 2^31 gets clamped to 0, so it creates an Enchantment that gives exactly 0 Health, and thus the Void Terror's Health will remain at 3.[351]
    • Note that if a calculation relies on the value of another tag (for example, your Hero's Attack value is the sum of all Hero Attack buffs plus the Attack of your weapon), it uses the final value of that tag - so if it was negative and clamped to 0, 0 is used.[352][353]

Esoteric rulebook[edit | edit source]

Mechanics that are rarely seen yet have some general applicability and/or are arguably bugs will be featured here instead of in the main advanced rulebook.

Forced Death Phase[edit | edit source]

Cards like  Mimiron's Head,  Poison Seeds,  Reincarnate,  Blood of The Ancient One,  Ravenous Pterrordax[354],  Defile,  Yogg-Saron, Hope's End and  Lynessa Sunsorrow all have in common that they force a Death Phase to begin inside of the Spell Text Phase/"Start of Turn Phase"/"End of Turn Phase", with a Death Creation Step just before it that kills and removes from play mortally wounded and pending destroy minions. New minions cannot be summoned correctly without this mechanic. If you remember how Phases work, then you know that normally a Death Phase cannot start inside of a Phase - and indeed, once the Forced Death Phase ends, no follow-up Death Phases can be scheduled until the outer Phase ends, so additional Deaths remain un-processed until then. Besides,  Servant of Yogg-Saron and  Tortollan Primalist can also insert a Death Phase in their Battlecries when comboed with  Brann Bronzebeard.

Additionally, cards with player-chosen multi-targeting effects, such as  Goliath, Sneed's Masterpiece or  Barbed Nets force a Death Phase between all targeting choices.

However, some cards don't apply this mechanic despite having similar descriptions with cards mentioned above. They are  Invocation of Air from  Kalimos, Primal Lord[355] and  Spreading Plague[356].

The steps that run when a Forced Death Phase is executed are as follows:

  • Aura Update (Health/Attack)
  • Summon Resolution Step[357]
  • Death Creation Step
  • Aura Update (Other)[358]
  • Death Phase
  • Aura Update (Health/Attack)
  • Summon Resolution Step
  • Aura Update (Other)
  • Next step in the original phase

Note that Aura Update (Other) runs after the Death Creation Step and before the Death Phase, and Aura Update (Health/Attack) does not run after the Death Creation Step and before the Death Phase. This means that the Aura updates relative to a Forced Death Phase are similar to those before a normal Death Phase.

Examples

  • You play a  Haunted Creeper then  Explosive Sheep. Your opponent plays  Poison Seeds. Your minions are marked pending destroy, then a Forced Death Phase runs where two Spectral Spiders are summoned, then the Explosive Sheep's Deathrattle mortally wounds them. But the new Deaths are not processed yet - the rest of the spell continues, summoning Treants, then finally the Spell Text Phase ends and the Spectral Spiders are killed. [359]
  • Both players' boards are full of Boom Bots. You play  Mimiron's Head. Both players pass. When Mimiron's Head triggers, a Forced Death Phase runs where all friendly mechs are removed from play, and consequences of death subsequently run - in this case, the Boom Bot Deathrattles go off, mortally wounding enemy Boom Bots. However, the enemy Boom Bots remain mortally wounded until the end of the Start of Turn Phase, before the Death Creation Step finally runs again and the enemy Boom Bots' Deathrattles go off, able to target  V-07-TR-0N, which they wouldn't have been able to if Forced Death Phases repeated until no further the Death Creation Step occurred.[360][361]
  • Your opponent has a  Zombie Chow and  Auchenai Soulpriest. You play  Poison Seeds. Regardless of order of play, you get healed by the Zombie Chow.[362]
  • You have a damaged minion and a  Stormwind Champion. You cast  Reincarnate on the  Stormwind Champion. Your damaged minion does not gain 1 Health.[363]
  • New in League of Explorers,  Djinni of Zephyrs copying  Reincarnate triggers a Forced Death Phase.

Notes

  • Between the Naxxramas expansion and the Goblins vs Gnomes expansion,  Kel'Thuzad also used a Forced Death Phase before then re-summoning everything that had died this turn. This made it possible to, for example, have Ragnaros mortally wound  Kel'Thuzad then  Kel'Thuzad would allow himself to die then resurrect himself.[364][365]
  • During Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14), Forced Death Phase mechanics no longer ran a Death Phase after their Death Creation Step, meaning the Deathrattles of the minions they've killed were postponed until after the rest of the effect finishes (minions being summoned, etc).[366] As of Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14) this has been reverted.[367]
  • Before K&C there are no Aura Update or Summon Resolution Step between Forced Death Phase and the next step.[368]


Miscellaneous weapon information[edit | edit source]

  • Weapons can go to negative Durability before breaking in the following Death Creation Step - for example by using  Bloodsail Corsair and  Brann Bronzebeard.[369]
  • If your Weapon has less than 0 Attack (such as by using  Gorehowl and  Spiteful Smith) (still displayed as 0) and you cast  Heroic Strike, your Hero will display 4 Attack, not 3. This means that the Weapon Attack and Hero Attack are calculated and added separately.[370]
  •  Buccaneer triggers the exact moment a weapon is equipped (not played) - not on any sort of delay.[371]
  •  Cursed Blade's effect is similar to Aura(Health/Attack). For example, attacking into an enemy  Abomination with the last charge of your Cursed Blade will cause you to take 4 damage from the Deathrattle, because the first Weapon Update Step runs BEFORE Cursed Blade leaves play in the Death Creation Step, and the next Weapon Update Step is not until after the following Death Phase. Using  Sabotage on an enemy Cursed Blade and Abomination, the Abomination Deathrattle also deals 4 damage.
  • Before K&C if you have a Deathrattle weapon you have just equipped immediately replaced, such as by  Brann Bronzebeard plus  Blingtron 3000, its Deathrattle will not work.

Destroy effects in all zones[edit | edit source]

It has been said that a Destroy effect hitting an Entity actually just sets it pending destroy/TO_BE_DESTROYED, a flag that is checked in the next Death Creation Step, and has the same effect as the Entity having 0 current health. However, this is only true for minions in the Play Zone being Destroyed. A full list of effects is as follows:

  • Minion in Play Zone: Set pending destroy.
  • Hero in Play Zone: Set pending destroy. When the Hero actually dies, your Player Entity's PLAYSTATE tag is set to LOSING, and the next time Hearthstone checks for win/loss/draw you lose the game.[372]
  • Weapon in Play Zone: Set pending destroy. If it existed since the last Weapon Update Step, its Deathrattle will run the next Weapon Update Step (see previous section for more information).
  • Secret in Play Zone: Dies and goes to the Graveyard. (Happens when Counterspelled, Flared, stolen by a Kezan Mystic when there's no Secret that can be validly stolen and when the Secret triggers)
  • Minion/Hero in Graveyard Zone: No known effect.
  • Minion/Hero in Setaside Zone: Goes to the Graveyard. No other known effects[373][374]
  • Any card in Deck Zone: Goes to the Graveyard. No other known effects.[375]
  • Any Card in Hand Zone: Goes to the Graveyard. Counts as a discard and does not create a Death Event, so no Deathrattles/on-death triggers run, Volcanic minions (and similar effects) don't reduce cost, and KT does not revive the minion.[376]

(Note that damaging Entities that aren't in Play has no effect, since such Entities do not participate in the Death Creation Step, and Damage Events on Entities not in Play aren't broadcasted, so nothing can trigger on them, even the Entity itself that was damaged.)

Notes:

Summon Resolution Step[edit | edit source]

Related Video for this section: [Hearthstone Science] The Summon Resolution Step (Starving Buzzard Bomb, Commanding Shout and more) (Note that Commanding Shout is no longer an SRS trigger as of Patch 5.0.)


When we have previously talked about 3 steps at the end of each outermost Phase, it was an oversimplification. There are actually 5, one of which is the Summon Resolution Step. Here is the real list:

  • 'Previous Phase'
    • Aura Update (Health/Attack) Step [379]
    • Summon Resolution Step
    • Aura Update (Health/Attack) Step
    • Death Creation Step
    • Aura Update (Other) Step
  • 'Next Phase' (a Death Phase if any Death Events were created in the Death Creation Step, otherwise the next named Phase of the Sequence)

Whenever a minion enters play (whether due to being played or summoned), a 'Summon Event' is created, but not resolved. Instead, during the Summon Resolution Step, in order of play, we resolve each Summon Event, Queuing and Resolving triggers.

The following minions and effects are examples of 'Summon Triggers' and trigger in the Summon Resolution Step:  Starving Buzzard,  Undertaker,  One-eyed Cheat,  Knight of the Wild,  Steward of Darkshire[380],  Maloriak's The Alchemist Hero Power,[381] the Miniature Warfare Tavern Brawl rule (for minions that do not already have 'Miniature' attached).[382],  Cobalt Guardian and  Murloc Tidecaller.

Besides, minions resulting from non-spell transformations are counted as 'summoning a minion' and allowed to participate in the Summon Resolution Step, including e.g.  Faceless Manipulator,  Recombobulator,  Poultryizer, Lady Naz'jar's Hero Power (from the Boss Battle Royale Tavern Brawl),  Thrall, Deathseer's Battlecry and Hero Power[383], transition between  Sherazin, Corpse Flower and seed[384].


Examples:

  • You play a  Starving Buzzard and  Druid of the Fang. You didn't play a Beast, just created one via a Transform effect, but as it was a non-spell transformation, Starving Buzzard triggers and draws a card. This also works if you use a  Faceless Manipulator and transform it, for example into a Beast (for Starving Buzzard) or something with a Deathrattle (for  Undertaker).[385][386] This also works if you use  Tinkmaster Overspark, but not if you use  Polymorph.
  • You play a  Starving Buzzard, two Knife Jugglers, a second Starving Buzzard then  Unleash the Hounds. Each hound summoning triggers the two Knife Jugglers in order of play, then finally when the Spell Text Phase ends, for each hound summoned, the two Starving Buzzards trigger in order of play.[387] Finally, any allied Wild Pyromancers activate.[388]  Snake Trap works the same way. [389] Using  Savannah Highmane's Deathrattle has a similar result.[390]
  • You play two Undertakers, a  Knife Juggler and  Dr. Boom. For each  Boom Bot summoned, the Knife Juggler triggers, then at the end of the Battlecry Phase, the Undertakers trigger in order of play for each Boom Bot during the "Summon Resolution Step". Finally, the Knife Juggler throws a knife for Dr. Boom's summon.[391]
  • You play a  One-eyed Cheat, a  Knife Juggler and target your One-eyed Cheat with a  Faceless Manipulator. The One-eyed Cheat does not trigger, then the Battlecry turns it into a One-eyed Cheat with no Stealth. The Knife Juggler then triggers in the inserted phase. Finally, during the Summon Resolution Step, the original One-eyed Cheat reacts to the newly summoned pirate, triggering and gaining Stealth.[392]
  • You play two Piloted Shredders and your opponent Flamestrikes. A  One-eyed Cheat comes out of both Shredders. At first neither one triggers, but during the "Summon Resolution Step", they react to each other and both stealth.[393]
  • Similar to other Events/Phases, if the minion associated with a Summon Event is no longer in play at the time it is resolved, then nothing queues. For example, if you play  Tinkmaster Overspark onto a battlefield of  Starving Buzzard and  Brann Bronzebeard and Brann is transformed twice, Starving Buzzard only triggers once, on the second Summon Event.[394]

Notes:


Quest Reward Step[edit | edit source]

Quest reward will not be added to your hand immediately you finish your quest, but until the current phase ends. Similar to Summon Resolution Step, Quest Reward Step is also a step between phases, which checks if you have finished your quest and gives you reward. Its timing is before Summon Resolution Step.

Examples:


Dominant Player Bug[edit | edit source]

Related Video for this section: [Hearthstone Science] The Dominant Player Bug (Shadow Madness+Power Overwhelming and more) However, note that the Shadow Madness + Power Overwhelming interaction has been fixed in Patch 5.0; the minion always dies.


Definition: The Dominant player is the player having PLAYER_ID value = 1. This is decided before, and is unrelated to who goes first/who has the coin.
Rule DP1: When triggers (NOT Events) from both players are resolved for a common Event, the Dominant Player's is resolved in order of play first, then the Secondary Player's is resolved in order of play. This is as opposed to all triggers from both players Queuing and resolving in global order of play.
Rule DP2: Both player's triggers are queued at the same time - this means if a Dominant Player trigger creates a Secondary Player trigger, it cannot work for the Event resolving now.
Rule DP3: If a trigger has priority, the priority only acts in same player's triggers. For example,  Redemption owned by the Dominant Player still Resolves before the Secondary Player's triggers for a given Death Event.


  • Dominant Player is called Player 1 in official announcements. So this might not be a bug.[399]
  • It does not affect Events, e.g. the order in which simultaneous Deaths are considered, or the order in which simultaneous damage/healing is considered.
  • A trigger or enchantment is 'controlled' by the Player that caused it to be put into play, and who 'controls' it is what is considered for the Dominant Player Bug. For example, if you play Lucifron, all  Corruption enchantments are 'controlled' by you.[400]

Examples:

  • If you and your opponent have Murloc Tidecallers, instead of strictly going by order of play, the dominant player's Murloc Tidecallers go off, then the other's. It has nothing to do with who got the Coin or not, and is consistent per game.[401][402][403]
  • If you and your opponent have a  Lorewalker Cho, instead of going strictly by order of play, the dominant player 's  Lorewalker Cho triggers first.[404] Similarly, if you have a  Violet Teacher and your opponent has a  Burly Rockjaw Trogg, the dominant player 's on-spell triggers go off first. Similarly, if you have a  Gadgetzan Auctioneer and your opponent has a  Trade Prince Gallywix and play a spell with 10/10 cards, the dominant player 's on-spell trigger goes first, thus filling the 10th spot in your hand.[405]
  • You play a  Kel'Thuzad then your opponent plays  Gruul. At the end of his turn, instead of going strictly by order of play, the dominant player's end of turn triggers go first.[406]
  • You play a  Flesheating Ghoul then your opponent plays a  Flesheating Ghoul. When a Death happens, instead of going strictly by order of play, the dominant player's on-Death triggers go first, per Death (which IS in order of play).[407]
  • The Dominant Player Bug applies to Combat Preparation Phase triggers too. If you attack with a Forgetful minion into traps like  Misdirection, the dominant player's trigger goes first, regardless of order of play. Similarly, if both you and your opponent have Mogor the Ogres, all the dominant player's Mogors go off first, then all your Mogors go off.[408]
  • If the Dominant Player plays  Redemption and the Secondary Player plays a  Flesheating Ghoul, regardless of order of play, when one of the Dominant Player's minion dies while it's not his turn, the  Redemption triggers before the  Flesheating Ghoul triggers.[409]

Notes:

  • Before Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch),  Shadow Madness +  Power Overwhelming would allow the minion to survive for one more turn if done by the Secondary Player. This was because when the minion changed controllers, the attached Enchantment also changed controllers.[410][411] As of Patch 5.0, attached Enchantments no longer change controllers. This means it is not removed from the queue, and triggers as normal. As a result, Shadow Madness + Power Overwhelming now always causes the minion to die.[412]
  • Before Patch 2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch) the challenger in a friendly match was the Dominant Player always. This seems to no longer be the case, and now seems to be random.
  • Before Naxxramas, the Dominant Player Bug affected the order of Deathrattles resolving. For example, if  Sylvanas Windrunner traded into a second Sylvanas, the Dominant Player's Sylvanas's Deathrattle triggered first, instead of using order of play.[413]
  • Before Patch 9.2.0.21517, Secondary Player's triggers are not queued until Dominant Player's triggers are resolved. This cause a Secondary Player's trigger created by Dominant Player's triggers can follow and resolve.

The Order of Battlefield, Hand and Deck Triggers[edit | edit source]

Related link for this section: https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/495

In Patch 9.2.0.21517, the Quad Queue is reported to have been removed. Need to test, however

Rule DP4: A clarification of Rule DP1: The same player's triggers in different zones have a fixed order: Dominant Player Play, Dominant Player Hand, Dominant Player Deck, Secondary Player Play, Secondary Player Hand, Secondary Player Deck.

An additional note on Shifter Zerus and Enchantments:

All Enchantments are considered to be in the Play Zone, even if they are attached to a minion in your Hand, Graveyard, Deck or Setaside. The most notable case of this is  Shifter Zerus, whose implementation is as follows:

  • An untransformed Shifter Zerus triggers as a Hand Trigger at the Start of Turn Phase to change forms, and attaches the 'Shifting' (OG_123e) Enchantment to himself.
  • The 'Shifting' Enchantment triggers as a Play Trigger at the Start of Turn Phase to change the minion it is attached to. Even though it is an Enchantment to a minion in the Hand, it is itself in Play due to the above rule.

Examples:

  • If you have an  Alarm-o-Bot and a  Shifter Zerus in your hand, the Shifter Zerus will trigger first if it is already transformed, but the Alarm-o-Bot will trigger first if it is not yet transformed.[414]
  • If you play  Curse of Rafaam then your opponent plays  Competitive Spirit, despite the play order, Competitive Spirit will trigger first since it exists in the Play Zone.[415]
  • If you have  Animated Berserker on board and  Patches the Pirate in deck and play a pirate, Animated Berserker will trigger first since if exists in the Play Zone.

Mid-Phase removal and triggers[edit | edit source]

Rule MPR1: If a minion is removed from play in the middle of a Phase (such as through being returned to the hand, shuffled into the deck or due to Full Zone Instant Removal), all additional triggers attached to it are immediately removed from play and ineligible to trigger.
Rule MPR2: Deathrattles are an exception to rule MPR1 - despite being triggers, they can resolve in any zone, including Play, Hand, Graveyard and Deck.


Examples:

  • You play  Malorne and cast  Ancestral Spirit and  Soul of the Forest on it. When Malorne dies, first Malorne is shuffled into your deck, then the additional Deathrattles resolve in play order.[417]
  • You play  Anub'arak and  Soul of the Forest on Anub'arak. When Anub'arak dies, both Deathrattles will resolve in that order - even though Anub'arak is in the Hand, Deathrattles are eligible to trigger in the Hand zone, so a 2/2 Treant will be summoned onto the board.[418]
  • You play  Blessing of Wisdom on a minion and send it to attack into a  Freezing Trap. The Freezing Trap triggers first and removes your minion from play before Blessing of Wisdom can draw you a card.
  • You play a Mech,  Alarm-o-Bot then  Mimiron's Head with only non-Mech minions in your hand. Both players pass. During the Start of Turn Phase, first Alarm-o-Bot goes off and replaces itself with a non-Mech. Mimiron's Head was queued, but since it is no longer eligible it aborts.[419] (Conversely, if Mimiron's Head is played before Alarm-o-Bot, Alarm-o-Bot is removed from play before it can trigger due to the Forced Death Phase.[420]) Similarly,  Poultryizer played before Mimiron's Head may Transform a Mech into a  Chicken, and Mimiron's Head will abort as it lacks 3 Mechs now.[421][422]
  • You play  Anub'ar Ambusher then  Cult Master. The Anub'ar Ambusher dies. The triggers queued for its death are Anub'ar Deathrattle, Cult Master Trigger. The Deathrattle goes off first and removes the Cult Master from play, so it does not trigger and give you a card.[423]
  • You play  Alarm-o-Bot then play  Nightmare on it. On your next Start of Turn Phase, the triggers go off in order of play - thus, Alarm-o-Bot enters your hand, then the removed Nightmare does nothing. If you play it again, it is not instantly destroyed.[424]

Notes:

  • Until Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch), Deathrattles became immediately ineligible to queue or trigger if the related minion was in the Deck or Setaside Zone. This was fixed to make Malorne + added Deathrattles work as intended. However, if you  Feign Death a minion with an original zone-moving Deathrattle, its added Deathrattles still cannot work. This might be a bug.

Avenge, Redemption and Effigy[edit | edit source]

Related Video: [Hearthstone Science] BONUS #01: Avenge, Redemption and Effigy - Exceptional Triggers

Most triggers will Queue when an Event starts being resolved, even if their condition is not true at the time, and then check the condition when the trigger starts being resolved. For example, if you play  Cult Master followed by  Voidcaller and your opponent kills the Voidcaller, even if you had no Demons in your hand, the Cult Master can draw a Demon and the Voidcaller Deathrattle can put it into play.[425] However, three Triggers - all Secrets -  Avenge,  Redemption and  Effigy all check their Condition twice - both when Queuing and when triggering.

Examples:

  •  Avenge's condition is that the board must be non-empty. For example, if you play  Sludge Belcher and Avenge, then your opponent kills the Sludge Belcher, Avenge will not Queue, as at the time of Queuing, there is nothing on the board to buff, even though if it Queued it would have been able to trigger and buff the  Putrid Slime. Conversely, if you play  Anub'ar Ambusher and another minion then Avenge and then your opponent kills the Anub'ar Ambusher, Avenge will Queue because it sees a friendly minion to buff, but at the time of triggering, said friendly minion has been removed from play, and it will not trigger.
  •  Redemption and  Effigy's condition is that the board must be non-full. For example, if you play  Haunted Creeper followed by  Anub'ar Ambusher and then either Redemption or Effigy, then your opponent kills both those minions simultaneously, during the Haunted Creeper's Death, Redemption/Effigy will Queue because the board will be non-full, then it will decide not to trigger because the board fills up. Conversely, during the Anub'ar Ambusher's death, Redemption/Effigy will not Queue because the board is full, even though if it did Queue, it could have triggered after the Anub'ar Ambusher's Deathrattle freed up a space.

Additionally,  Duplicate has a trigger condition of 'your hand is not full'.[426] It also have a queuing condition of 'your hand is not full'. Gateway Kodo has the same conditions.-->

Trigger conditions and Queuing conditions[edit | edit source]

Besides the Secrets  Avenge,  Redemption,  Effigy and  Duplicate, many other triggers in Hearthstone that have a condition may have the condition as a trigger condition, a queuing condition or both. Sometimes it is difficult to tell which of these three it is without crafting a specific test.

Many of these are listed in the Combat section of the Advanced rulebook. Here are some other examples:

  •  Hobgoblin has a triggering condition of 'minion is 1-Attack, or a previous Hobgoblin triggered'.
  •  Voidcaller's Deathrattle does not have any condition - it tries to force play a Demon from your hand, and if you lack one it simply does nothing.[427]
  •  Chillmaw's Deathrattle has a queuing condition of 'controller is holding a Dragon'. This means if  Duplicate triggers before Chillmaw's Deathrattle and adds a Dragon to your hand, the Deathrattle did not queue so nothing happens. Conversely, if a  Dancing Swords dies before Chillmaw and draws a Dragon, this is early enough for Chillmaw's Deathrattle to queue and resolve on Chillmaw's Death Event.[428]
  •  Alarm-o-Bot's trigger has a queuing and trigger condition of 'controller is holding a minion'. For example, if you have 0 minions and your  Nat Pagle (played first) draws a minion at the start of your turn, your Alarm-o-Bot (played second) will not trigger since it never queued.[429]
  •  Iron Sensei's trigger has a queuing and trigger condition of 'another friendly Mech exists'. For example, if you have 0 mechs and your  Kel'Thuzad (played first) summons one at the end of your turn, your Iron Sensei (played second) will not trigger since it never queued.[430]

(Currently, a comprehensive list of all queuing and trigger conditions in the game does not exist.)

In addition, most Battlecries just have a targeting condition - the condition must be satisfied when you play the minion from your hand and select a target, but it doesn't have to be satisfied again when the Battlecry resolves. This is true for almost every Battlecry in the game - including  Gormok the Impaler. (If you play Gormok onto a board of 4 minions and choose a target, but lose one or more of the other minions before the Battlecry resolves, it still deals 4 damage to the target.)[431]

However, several Battlecries work differently -  Rend Blackhand,  Blackwing Corruptor and Book Wyrmrequire you to be holding a Dragon both when you target the Battlecry and it resolves.  Blazecaller and  Prince Taldaram work similarly. (Tested by stealing the Battlecry minion before the Battlecry resolves, and the new controller is not holding a Dragon - the Battlecry does nothing.)[432][433]

In addition, Combo Battlecries - even targeted ones - if stolen before their Battlecry resolves, check the new controller's Combo status. If the new controller played a card on their last turn, Combo will be active. (This is also true for Combo spells played by a stolen  Yogg-Saron, Hope's End.[434]

Finally, it should be noted that spells with conditional effects - such as  Ice Lance and  Demonfire - that do not restrict what they can target, but change the effect based on a property of the target, do not check their conditional effects when targeted, but when resolving. So if the spell is redirected by  Spellbender or copied by  Djinni of Zephyrs, the condition will be checked at the time of resolution.

When does Overload occur?[edit | edit source]

Related video: [Hearthstone Laboratory] When Does Overload Occur? (Patch 4.1 post-hotfix)

Because it adds complexity to the Sequences for little predictive benefit (Overload already works rather intuitively), I've split this out into its own section.

The On Play Phase is slightly more complicated than the Sequences suggest. In particular, it looks like this:

  • On Play Phase: All triggers we normally expect here Queue and Resolve (including  Counterspell and  Unbound Elemental). Then there is an Aura Update, and if not Counterspelled, Overload is incurred. Then Tunnel Troggs Queue and Resolve.

(Also, note that even though there is an Aura Update, there is no Death Creation Step at this timing. There is likely no Summon Resolution Step either, but it is untested.)

This leads to the following consequences:

  •  Counterspell prevents Overload, which prevents Tunnel Troggs from triggering, but does not prevent Unbound Elementals from triggering. (After all, you Played an Overload card, you just didn't get Overloaded!)
  •  Brann Bronzebeard does not double Overload.
  • Stealing a Battlecry minion pre-Battlecry does not give Overload to the final controller of the minion.
  • During the Servant of Yogg-Saron Tryouts Tavern Brawl, if you play an Overload minion and the spell rolled is  Lava Shock, you incur Overload after Lava Shock resolves.
  •  Tunnel Trogg is exactly an overload trigger. It can also be affected by  Yogg-Saron, Hope's End's overload spells.[435]

There is also one unusual, seemingly contradictory observation - if you silence an Overload minion in the hand and play it, normally the minion is unsilenced before it enters play (giving it its Battlecry back, its Deathrattle back, etc). However, Overload is not incurred.[436]

Where do Minions summoned by Deathrattles spawn?[edit | edit source]

When only one minion dies, the position of its summoned minions is intuitive. However, as soon as multiple minions die at once, the results may defy expectations, like a Nerubian appearing between two Spectral Spiders. Here are the rules Hearthstone uses:

  1. During the Death Creation Step, all minions that are mortally wounded or 'pending destroy' have their Death Events created in play order.
  2. When a Death Event is created, the minion is removed from play and moved to the Graveyard, and it remembers its board position, counted from left to right. (Note that that the n-th played minion ignores the first to (n-1)-th played minions when counting it's new position, because they already left play.)
  3. During the subsequent Death Phase, their Death Events are resolved in play order. Any minions summoned by Deathrattles triggering on the Death Event are summoned in the board position the Death Event remembered from when it was created. (Note that previous triggers changing the board state is not taken into account - the remembered board position is used without modification.)

Examples of these rules in action can be observed by studying the video Hearthstone - Dreadsteed vs Knife Juggler.

Example: 3:05

  1. The 2nd and 7th Dreadsteed die. The 7th was just spawned, so the 2nd was played first.
  2. The 2nd dies and calculates its Death Event position: 2.
  3. The previously 7th minion dies, but as the 2nd Dreadsteed already died, it calculates the new board position, ignoring the 2nd one which already died, as 6.
  4. Now they spawn in the same order: 2nd first, then 6th.

Another example is in this video Hearthstone Deathrattle Chevron Puzzle Solution which is the solution to this puzzle Flamestrike Deathrattle Chevron.

  1. The Savannah Highmane is played first, followed by the Haunted Creeper and finally the Harvest Golem.
  2. Two additional minions are played afterwards to control the board position during death events of the Savannah Highmane, Haunted Creeper and Harvest Golem.
  3. A Flamestrike is played, killing all minions.
  4. The Savannah Highmane dies at position 0 (0-indexed) and is removed.
  5. The Haunted Creeper dies at position 1. This is because after the Savannah Highmane has been removed, the left-most Elven Archer occupies position 0 and the Haunted Creeper occupies position 1. The Haunted Creeper is then removed.
  6. The Harvest Golem dies at position 2 as positions 0 and 1 are occupied by Elven Archers.
  7. The two Elven Archers die and are removed.
  8. The Savannah Highmane's deathrattle triggers first as it was the earliest played minion. The two Hyenas spawn at position 0.
  9. The Haunted Creeper's deathrattle triggers next and the two Spectral Spiders spawn at position 1. This happens to be between the two Hyenas. Resulting in the configuration Hyena, Spectral Spider, Spectral Spider, Hyena.
  10. Finally, the Harvest Golem's deathrattle triggers and a Damaged Golem spawns at position 2, which is in between the two Spectral Spiders.

Notes:


Controllers of Enchantments and Minions[edit | edit source]

Rule CEM1: Enchantments have a CONTROLLER tag equal to the player who put them into play (such as with a Battlecry, Spell or trigger). This can be different from the CONTROLLER tag of the Entity (usually Minion) they are attached to. Its current CONTROLLER value is used whenever an Enchantent needs to know one of the following things:
Rule CEM1b: Which player's Start of Turn Phase to trigger in ( Conceal,  Finicky Cloakfield,  Master of Disguise,  Corruption,  Nightmare)
Rule CEM1c: Whether to queue in the Dominant Player's queue or the Secondary Player's queue (all Enchantments with triggers).
Rule CEM1d: Which player's battlefield to look for an  Auchenai Soulpriest/ Embrace the Shadow effect in ( Power Word: Glory).
Rule CEM2: However, the Enchantment's CONTROLLER tag is NOT used for the following:
Rule CEM2a: Which Hero to heal/which player to draw a card for ( Blessing of Wisdom,  Power Word: Glory)
Rule CEM2b: For Enchantments that add Deathrattles, who gets the effect and whether to queue (and also whether it can resolve at resolution time) in the Dominant Player's queue or the Secondary Player's queue. For both of these things, the minion's CONTROLLER is always used instead. ( Ancestral Spirit,  Explorer's Hat,  Soul of the Forest)
Rule CEM2c: For Enchantments that add Spell Damage +1 (like  Velen's Chosen,  Ancient Mage and  Dalaran Aspirant, the minion they are attached to always gives the effect to the minion's controller, regardless of who originally cast it.
Rule CEM3: Whenever a minion changes CONTROLLERs, all attached enchantments do not change CONTROLLERs - they are still considered to be controlled by the original caster.

Examples:

  • If Player A plays  Nightmare on a minion, no matter how many times it changes controllers, the Enchantment it creates will trigger to destroy the minion in Player A's next Start of Turn Phase.
  • If Player A plays  Velen's Chosen on a minion, it will always give Spell Damage +1 to the minion's current controller, not the original caster.
  • If Player A plays  Power Word: Glory on a minion belonging to either player, when the Enchantment it creates triggers, it checks if Player A has an Auchenai Soulpriest effect, no matter how many times the attached minion changes controllers.[437]
  • If the Secondary Player owns a  Webspinner and the Dominant Player casts  Explorer's Hat on it, regardless of whether it dies or  Feign Death is casted, the Webspinner Deathrattle will resolve before the Explorer's Hat, because the Explorer's Hat uses the minion's controller, not its own controller, to decide what to do.[438]

Notes:

  • Prior to Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch), whenever a minion changed CONTROLLERs, attached Enchantments also changed CONTROLLERs. This causes some unusual interactions with Nightmare and Power Word: Glory.[439][440][441]


What actually ignores Mortally Wounded?[edit | edit source]

Rule 5 talks about what effects ignore mortally wounded (0 or less Health)/pending destroy (hit by a Destroy effect this Phase) Characters, and what effects include them. (Note that they are in play, take up space, and can still trigger - so it's a matter of what effects are coded to ignore them, and what effects are coded to include them.) But it is an informal oversimplification. Here is the real list:

  • Note:  Noble Sacrifice triggers even if the attacker is mortally wounded or removed from play because it has a side-effect it can still do.

As you can see, it's not especially clear! If I can think of a way to condense this down into something catchy, it will become the new Rule 5.


Rule changes[edit | edit source]

Main article: Game Mechanics Updates

Discussion[edit | edit source]

Why isn't there an official rulebook?[edit | edit source]

From the start, Hearthstone was designed to be quick and easy to learn, with new players able to have grasped the basics by the end of the tutorial. The game is often compared with card games such as Magic: The Gathering, featuring highly complex and "extremely detailed" rulesets, with official comprehensive rulebooks which are regularly updated and consulted during tournaments.[462] In contrast, Hearthstone's simple rules allow new players to pick up the game in minutes, with a minimally challenging learning curve. This makes the game far more accessible, increasing the appeal of the game and allowing it reach many players who might not wish to invest the time and effort in learning a more complex ruleset.

However, while the basic operations of the game are usually without uncertainty, there are still times when the precise results of actions can be unclear in advance, especially when several advanced effects are in play. For this reason, some players have called for an official rulebook to be included in the game.

The main reason developers have given for the lack of an official rulebook is the desire to keep the game's rules essentially simple, and the game itself accessible. Hearthstone is intended to be playable without consulting a list of rules, and the addition of a rulebook would be contrary to this design goal, as well as potentially encouraging the game to develop in increasingly complex ways. Game designers such as Ben Brode have stated a desire to keep the game simple and accessible enough to be understood without such resources.

Critically, the lack of a rulebook is made viable by the digital nature of the game, with the system itself instructing players of many of the basic rules of the game, such as highlighting all permitted moves in a turn, and preventing players from taking illegal actions. Tooltips for keywords further assist players in learning and remembering the basic rules. In most intermediate Hearthstone play, there is also relatively little uncertainty over the operation of the basic rules, obviating most of the need for a rulebook. This approach helps to ease new players into the game; Basic cards are designed to be simpler than cards of other sets for this reason.[463]

How does the Hearthstone team keep track of all the rules in Hearthstone?[edit | edit source]

In a public AMA on August 11, 2020, Software Engineer syah_hs explained how the Hearthstone team manages to keep track of all the rules in Hearthstone and how the game rules are always verified with unit tests to make sure that they work properly with new additions to the game:[464]

There are several human-language documents. They range from step-by-step walkthroughs of interactions to collections of "tribal knowledge" to pass down to future generations. None of this is really fit for public consumption. I think the most important part of our documentation is our collection of unit tests. These tests validate that specific card interactions work and that those interactions don't change as we make other changes to provide new functionality or improve processes.
When we're presented with new card ideas from the design team, a common question that comes up is "How would this effect work in this situation?" One thing I love about our design team is that the response to that question is usually "How would you expect it to work?" This helps us derive the right wording for a card or even to determine if an effect is too complex early on.
When we're thinking about the right way to implement a card we rely heavily on what we've done in the past. Sometimes we get brand new things and we try to find the closest parallel. It helps to have encyclopedic knowledge of every card in the game and if we ever have a question about a card it's easy for us to boot up a game and test the interaction out ourselves.

Changes to game rules[edit | edit source]

Main article: Game Mechanics Updates

The designers have expressed a desire to make the rules of the game more consistent.[465] However, the process appears to be a very gradual one, with changes made due more to necessity than as part of any more comprehensive effort to adjust the rules - at least, thus far. One way rules can change over time is through the addition of new cards which highlight inconsistencies, or otherwise require game mechanics to be altered in order to allow the desired functionality.

Prior to Naxxramas, there was not a concept of 'order of play' - it was much more difficult to predict the outcome of simultaneous deaths and simultaneous deathrattles, further complicated by a concept of 'minion tiers' which gave special priority.[466]

 Shadowboxer is an excellent example of the invention of a new card causing the game's underlying mechanics to be revised. Prior to the introduction of Shadowboxer, AoE healing effects healed targets one at a time, with any triggered effects activating after each healing occurred. For example, with a  Northshire Cleric on the board, a spell like  Circle of Healing would heal one minion at a time, with each followed immediately by a card being drawn, before moving on to the next minion. However, this design presented a problem for Shadowboxer's design. The current mechanic at the time of the card's invention meant that with Shadowboxer's triggered effect activated after each healing, and therefore before all healing had taken place, a Circle of Healing would potentially heal the very target the Shadowboxer had just damaged, thus undoing its effects. Likely as a result of the invention of this card, the game mechanic was altered prior to the card's addition, with the result that all single-effect healing now takes place at once, before any related triggers are activated.

The introduction of  Grim Patron saw a similar adjustment, with a long-standing bug in the behaviour of  Warsong Commander fixed in time for the card's release, while another several month-old bug with Warsong Commander which was not related to Grim Patron was left unfixed.

While these changes are relatively minor, they illustrate how the design of future cards might cause standardisation and change to the game's mechanics. Cards which place importance on the results of behaviours which are currently inconsistent or buggy, or vary depending on cryptic factors, may cause those mechanics to be adjusted or standardised in order to avoid contradictory results, or in order to facilitate player comprehension and prediction.

References[edit | edit source]

 
  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/532325039081660416
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd9A4RyGXW4
  3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5BTonvvCuk&t=0m23s
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FumaYEDwKkQ
  5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egYlDWWhsb4
  6. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOI6AiRbs9Y
  7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oew91YkG7iU
  8. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TEQlw4av5s&t=563 Tested in Patch 2.8.0.9554 (TTGT pre-purchase patch)
  9. ↑ KMight be a bug, playing an 1-attack between 2 Flametongue Totems or when you have 2 Hobgoblins triggers your Druid Quest.
  10. ↑ Tested by Kybxd in Patch 10.0.0.22611.
  11. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2CXd5AmFM
  12. ↑ Similar situation to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCk4CBuVnsM Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  13. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivWEIZgAJcQ&t=0m38s
  14. ↑ https://youtu.be/3HBEBl50u3o
  15. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlQ6Zyz8nmA - If the aura's Health buff was removed before the Explosive Sheep went off, we'd see the Mana Wyrm go to x/3 then to x/1. Instead we see it go to x/2, indicating the Health buff was not removed yet.
  16. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22. Played  Mal'Ganis then  Abomination. Weakened Mal'Ganis to 2 Health. Used  Hellfire. Both minions were destroyed (hero was Immune and thus protected from damage). Hero then lost Immune effect. Abomination's Deathrattle then triggered, damaging all characters, including the hero.
  17. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22. Played  Abomination then  Mal'Ganis. Weakened Mal'Ganis to 3 Health. Opponent played  Flamestrike. Abomination and Mal'Ganis were destroyed. Hero then lost Immune effect. Abomination's Deathrattle then triggered, damaging all characters, including the hero.
  18. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm1t1FU-ftc
  19. ↑ https://youtu.be/MSmiCOad1Q4
  20. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jBoHAvW2w link Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  21. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlQ6Zyz8nmA
  22. ↑ Thoroughly tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-07. Using both  Cult Master and  Flesheating Ghoul, neither minion triggers from the simultaneous Death of other minions, regardless of order of play. Death of minions which cause the Death of the Cult Master/Ghoul (e.g.,  Explosive Sheep Death) will however trigger the effect.
  23. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/2kw20p/til_heroes_cannot_be_brought_back_from_the_dead/
  24. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CkBjUuW_qI&t=3m16s
  25. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22
  26. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/18300623113 Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  27. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdOXG-o7eME&feature=youtu.be&t=0m20s
  28. ↑ https://youtu.be/0c5mjv_1-Hs
  29. ↑ https://youtu.be/v3TUCIVY5SM
  30. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  31. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4wYoUKMi_Q Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  32. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wDU3IpGFQ Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (Mech War Tavern Brawl patch)
  33. ↑ http://us.battle.net/forums/en/hearthstone/topic/20752208622
  34. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/799
  35. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4imesc/til_that_mortal_coil_will_draw_a_card_when_a/ Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  36. ↑ http://bbs.nga.cn/read.php?tid=12247721&page=1#pid239286409Anchor
  37. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  38. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1MkS7_jj0U
  39. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLt9OFvF1w
  40. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnMJpUSw7pA&feature=youtu.be&t=11m53s
  41. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCKhbmHNLAs&t=6m38s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  42. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-07. Tested thoroughly in several single-Death scenarios. For example: Played  Redemption,  Unstable Ghoul,  Cult Master. Opponent then destroyed Unstable Ghoul. Deathrattle triggered first, then Cult Master, then Redemption. Another example: Played  Redemption,  Cult Master,  Sludge Belcher. Opponent then destroyed Sludge Belcher. Cult Master triggered first, then Sludge Belcher Deathrattle, then Redemption. Another example: Played  Redemption,  Loot Hoarder,  Abomination. Opponent then destroyed Abomination. Abomination's Deathrattle triggered, killing Loot Hoarded; however it was remained on the board at -1 Health while Redemption was then activated.
  43. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton and User:Adys, 2015-02-07. Regardless of order of play, with several Deathrattle minions on the board, the Redemption will trigger from the Death of the first minion (the oldest), following its Deathrattle, but before the Deathrattles of the other minions.
  44. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckU78-6Hr0c Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  45. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc7oejbhdUA
  46. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5CxFCDAomU Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  47. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykjevh4AAMc Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  48. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/39if5x/mirror_entity_bug/
  49. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWU43SkHcF8&t=0m19s
  50. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3dkbg6/til_that_conceal_gives_minons_stealth_until_the/ Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  51. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjTFRA-TiA4
  52. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXfhHSlxKAY Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  53. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRWmVzANWD0 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  54. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCFkf9CPnls Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  55. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/19974088017 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  56. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHdveuZXoHg&t=2m07s Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  57. ↑ Retested by Kybxd in Patch 9.4.0.22115
  58. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP2mxbN56Ck&t=0m54s
  59. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXvdgWDTjg0&t=1m04s
  60. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBWHyvZv8nQ
  61. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu6zPbgpXEA
  62. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/13681168024
  63. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9zEzytj0g&t=1m25s
  64. ↑ There is a visual inconsistency in that when you have start of turn triggers, your mana/weapon unsheathing/hero power unflipping happens after them, but when your opponent has start of turn triggers, their mana/weapon unsheathing/hero power unflipping happens before them. However, the debug logs show that it actually all happens prior to start of turn triggers.
  65. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYNWKSr-jqM
  66. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ6pHiKgiA0 Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  67. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/495
  68. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak1V6HRnpOA
  69. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0oWMP7n1kI&t=0m15s
  70. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXvdgWDTjg0&t=1m04s
  71. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXvdgWDTjg0&t=1m04s
  72. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhbxhOKw9v4&t=0m53s
  73. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjtTtWzIig&t=1m29s
  74. ↑ [Patashu] edk: violet teacher, floating watcher, violet teacher, play cho'gall and a spell [Patashu] edk: and see what order stuff triggers in [edk] both floating watchers yes!'d before the teacher teached
  75. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdzhgYS5GmI Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (2015-09-29)
  76. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-03. Played  Stonesplinter Trogg, then  Counterspell, then  Burly Rockjaw Trogg. Opponent played  Polymorph; all 3 cards activated in order of play.
  77. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87BuWLxXKJQ Tested in Patch 5.0.1.13030 (2016-06-01)
  78. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwIOJTfgeGI
  79. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVegUWWZ0xs
  80. ↑ https://youtu.be/kk1r2Rb-jkU
  81. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEJQfMIHaPo Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  82. ↑ https://youtu.be/NVJ56cRSdhw
  83. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/24d6q7/spellbender_mechanics/
  84. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14UnlGudOks&t=0m46s
  85. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2an9dBLK6g8&t=0m32s
  86. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/37rwvi/light_of_the_naaru_1_0_shadowboxer/
  87. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm8dXYc3q0U Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  88. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/a8025fb44af12b987a00 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  89. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCYMKer604
  90. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ddDOwhGgVI
  91. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tlQakNvRls
  92. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqFXFc3tpOw
  93. ↑ https://youtu.be/Z1Ap-yb4sY4
  94. ↑ https://youtu.be/IhHiQyc0mZg
  95. ↑ https://youtu.be/lm3CbWw_8MM
  96. ↑ https://youtu.be/kXZ0vfKE5xA
  97. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/2v4z9d/til_when_you_play_jaraxxus_while_your_hero_is/
  98. ↑ https://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20944006/
  99. ↑ Reno, Lone Ranger#Notes
  100. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azszjTRONw4
  101. ↑ Tested repeatedly by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22.  Hobgoblin triggers alongside  Questing Adventurer and  Illidan Stormrage (order determined by order of play).
  102. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8-1HTW1IC0 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  103. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oQl_xFV7t8
  104. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WP0U32-_F0 Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  105. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton 2015-02-02, summoned Timber Wolf with a Starving Buzzard on board, the Buzzard clearly gained the Wolf's Attack buff prior to triggering its card draw effect
  106. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3SSvd4azY
  107. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJMTaWsgfw
  108. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4BncUyOFo
  109. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szLtQ-IUGew&t=1m12s
  110. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2CXd5AmFM
  111. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLt9OFvF1w
  112. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gudo33QI1Us&t=1m26s
  113. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3tgx1s/brann_bronzebeard_still_triggers_if/ Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  114. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9QENrxCgw Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  115. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Pv4jhJ9dk (LoE patch)
  116. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_xpCPxAAaQ Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  117. ↑ Tested by PattuX on 16th Jan 2016 - if you Cabal Shadow Priest an enemy Brann Bronzebeard, making your board full, the Cabal does not get a second Battlecry (which would kill Brann during that patch).
  118. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/384q3p/til_snipe_mirror_entity_copy_minion_with_dmg/
  119. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8u2Senk_XU
  120. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3hs4x1/now_i_know_what_happens_when_you_play_snipe_and/
  121. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3skp21/til_sacred_trial_kills_dr_boom_if_one_minion_is/ Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  122. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE8xQJDuodA Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  123. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpwrQkFoPx0 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  124. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpwrQkFoPx0 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  125. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MxRsOcJlGg&t=3m34s Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  126. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSGH40jokoE&t=9m23s Tested in Patch 3.2.0.10604 (2015-10-20)
  127. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZqKaQ87un4
  128. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlyppZ9Oko4
  129. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-G8menJ9sM
  130. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnMJpUSw7pA&feature=youtu.be&t=11m53s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  131. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1758zVywbg
  132. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzvKVL2Vlg
  133. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/39if5x/mirror_entity_bug/
  134. ↑ https://youtu.be/2Hj7rzi0BV0 Tested in Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14)
  135. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/698
  136. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2CXd5AmFM
  137. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLt9OFvF1w
  138. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlyppZ9Oko4
  139. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdOXG-o7eME&feature=youtu.be&t=0m53s
  140. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VWyxqolpgg
  141. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKf8WId7N0Q
  142. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/698
  143. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI4hwVe7Z1s
  144. ↑ http://bbs.ngacn.cc/read.php?tid=7837918&page=e
  145. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YthDmzNagU0&t=0m22s
  146. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1758zVywbg&t=1m22s
  147. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oQl_xFV7t8
  148. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMjUX4Db48 Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  149. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3770ol/how_to_make_an_11_health_twilight_drake/crk876m
  150. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XS4mlVEcU
  151. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp-fvE8ODcE Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  152. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/20
  153. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dSa0MiKEZU&index=153&list=PLx2kRadCTuYYrck0V0soHYjBvas9dGDYI
  154. ↑ https://youtu.be/dhy9CTYuUnM Tested in Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14)
  155. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlaP_kF823k Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  156. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  157. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-7qfkTmKZc Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  158. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFw31Ffss48 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  159. ↑ https://youtu.be/4jQfTxe7UY4 Tested in Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14)
  160. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyL-vES6vjI Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051
  161. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDX6iL6t3UM Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  162. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=454wq9Q2tgA
  163. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmKuR0ufIjM Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  164. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yajUIxiJQOo
  165. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCisCNSDQp0 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  166. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBaN2dsM3o Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  167. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCisCNSDQp0 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  168. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnnCIg_62KI Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (Mech War Tavern Brawl patch)
  169. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV7cNCDUAyA Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  170. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJs5MGAqVo&t=3m25s
  171. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqHM5H3VW8Y Tested in Patch 5.2.0.13714 (2016-07-14)
  172. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFo6ZfbNnZI
  173. ↑ Compare https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/5lgmgo/shouldnt_shaku_attacking_into_freezing_trap/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/5lgmgo/shouldnt_shaku_attacking_into_freezing_trap/dbvw4xb/ . The only way it could trigger both before and after Freezing Trap is if it's a Proposed Attack Event trigger.
  174. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/281
  175. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/5ly71e/genzo_the_shark_and_mayor_noggenfogger_fatigue/
  176. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp-fvE8ODcE Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  177. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPXRol0ELw
  178. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kA_ieXZZgc
  179. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFvE3Ao24A
  180. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ35sbzkRXg Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  181. ↑ https://imgur.com/WUn0MTe https://gist.github.com/culinko/b7559f2938017be684de Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  182. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDaw4ujGw0Y Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  183. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph99F_xqs4Q Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  184. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph99F_xqs4Q Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  185. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  186. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhwC4pX2Y4g&t=1m56s
  187. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ35sbzkRXg Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  188. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-0XM4jvP60 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  189. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/139#issuecomment-155783065 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  190. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/47eua1/magnataur_alpha_vs_imp_gang_boss_glitch/ Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  191. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KpCWn9ePI
  192. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOl8Bqk7Vck
  193. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ0xtvynBVo
  194. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d91L4Wka6b4 Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  195. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPnGu1yh17M&t=4m06s
  196. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoafHKc2ZJI
  197. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  198. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7C4I4hd0zI Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  199. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHgCZZV5hY8
  200. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7y1hppYYgo Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  201. ↑ Tested by Kybxd in Patch 8.2.2.19632. I was at 4 health Auchenai, and added PW: Glory to my Dred. Enemy played a minion, and my Tyrande shouted and died after Dred finished the attack.
  202. ↑ Observed by User:Taohinton, 2014-12-25
  203. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlaP_kF823k Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  204. ↑ Observed in-game by User:Taohinton, 2014-01-06
  205. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3j2ww9/bear_trap_saving_with_the_draw/ Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  206. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/17084749110
  207. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMPYoOC8t_k
  208. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOO-YAG1xYY
  209. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5BTonvvCuk&t=1m43s
  210. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1MkS7_jj0U Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  211. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3mp26p/best_rng_ive_ever_had_shadowboxer_truesilver/
  212. ↑ Funny and Lucky Moments - Hearthstone - Ep. 87. (2015-02-03). 
  213. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3iftcy/interesting_interaction_between_tirion_weaponry/ Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  214. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb21sGuSw4I
  215. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2krwg2/til_a_minion_with_0_attack_can_still_attack/
  216. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLkWspcXn9Y Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  217. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMhdzgRgATA Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  218. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVCX1zt0E4E Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (Mech War Tavern Brawl patch)
  219. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/16
  220. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ35sbzkRXg Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  221. ↑ https://imgur.com/WUn0MTe https://gist.github.com/culinko/b7559f2938017be684de Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  222. ↑ https://youtu.be/y3WrJR3sKsU
  223. ↑ Tested by Kybxd in Patch 10.0.0.22611
  224. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAKcNd_dro
  225. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPnGu1yh17M&t=4m06s
  226. ↑ Tested by PattuX in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14): Played Freezing Trap then Ice Barrier and attacked into it. Ice Barrier still triggered.
  227. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBzIQxCa_ew Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  228. ↑ Tested by Kybxd in Patch 10.0.0.22611
  229. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak1V6HRnpOA&t=1m18s
  230. ↑ Crypt (2015-05-10). Majordomo OTK Combo. 
  231. ↑ https://gist.github.com/Patashu/e2c6f17183c5f07270141d68149506df
  232. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfd2TRwVeY
  233. ↑ https://gist.github.com/Patashu/bff54988f876710987c5#file-replacing-your-hero-power-resets-heropower_activations_this_turn-log
  234. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/2v4z9d/til_when_you_play_jaraxxus_while_your_hero_is/
  235. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8Hmp8r1Q4&t=1m21s
  236. ↑ https://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20944006/
  237. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IaojGf4kZc
  238. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bI3aX2TWcg
  239. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/d5ca1bebed362517a82b
  240. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9HGtyS5UzE
  241. ↑ https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/21965466
  242. ↑ https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/21965466
  243. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfduurrE1R8
  244. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaOUCjXsvm4&t=1m53s
  245. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/1z7sar/til_you_can_heal_minions_using_equality_and/ 2014-02-28
  246. ↑ Ben Brode on Twitter (X). (2014-12-07). 
  247. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEG3Z7y41E4
  248. ↑ 248.0 248.1 Patch 22.0 Card Effect Priority Update. (2021-12-02). 
  249. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2an9dBLK6g8&t=1m31s
  250. ↑ Ben Brode on Twitter (X). (2014-12-06). 
  251. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StimopyMMsA
  252. ↑ Playing Shrinkmeister than Crazed Alchemist on a 3/3 results in a 3/1. After you end your turn, it is still a 3/1, and not a 1/1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_o_czbC4w
  253. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2jRHsoao_4
  254. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRDlcet68Y Tested in Patch 5.0.1.13030 (2016-06-01)
  255. ↑ https://youtu.be/3HBEBl50u3o
  256. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlQ6Zyz8nmA - If the aura's Health buff was removed before the Explosive Sheep went off, we'd see the Mana Wyrm go to x/3 then to x/1. Instead we see it go to x/2, indicating the Health buff was not removed yet.
  257. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22. Played  Mal'Ganis then  Abomination. Weakened Mal'Ganis to 2 Health. Used  Hellfire. Both minions were destroyed (hero was Immune and thus protected from damage). Hero then lost Immune effect. Abomination's Deathrattle then triggered, damaging all characters, including the hero.
  258. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-22. Played  Abomination then  Mal'Ganis. Weakened Mal'Ganis to 3 Health. Opponent played  Flamestrike. Abomination and Mal'Ganis were destroyed. Hero then lost Immune effect. Abomination's Deathrattle then triggered, damaging all characters, including the hero.
  259. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm1t1FU-ftc
  260. ↑ https://youtu.be/MSmiCOad1Q4
  261. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jBoHAvW2w link Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  262. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuCbDXPCIeQ Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  263. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3QSriH3pU&t=4m38s
  264. ↑ 264.0 264.1 https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/580838031243898880
  265. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z2ZU-cIoG8&t=145
  266. ↑ https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/678264477666557952
  267. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMDSsWxVLn4
  268. ↑ Doesn't show specifically Mad Scientist but you should get the idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-GqGNEdOiQ Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  269. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUHr3HE-DJ8 Tested in Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14)
  270. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcD2cYfSXlo Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (Mech War Tavern Brawl patch)
  271. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lvZj53RkM&t=1m55s
  272. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhbxhOKw9v4&t=0m33s
  273. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/18000259937
  274. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJCAoIMT6Bk
  275. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oew91YkG7iU
  276. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQG_4V4CkvE
  277. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rTjWcErDNI
  278. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/2obuo2/psa_imp_master_no_longer_spawns_an_imp_if_shes_11/
  279. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYGSoWbaIAM
  280. ↑ https://gist.github.com/Patashu/537c5d243d5037f407350edaa0989a03
  281. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XS4mlVEcU
  282. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCKhbmHNLAs
  283. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceQGYDdzdUA
  284. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/110#issuecomment-265112619
  285. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceQGYDdzdUA
  286. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB85s2S0-lM
  287. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzvKVL2Vlg&t=5m12s Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  288. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7J4-7kEDsg Tested in Patch 3.2.0.10604 (2015-10-20)
  289. ↑ https://gist.github.com/Patashu/a9102c0dcdb5d199cee7#file-full-zone-instant-removal-but-soul-of-the-forest-is-later-log (notice DAMAGE is set to 0) Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  290. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbKoID3Iy3A Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  291. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi5g7qHMklY Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  292. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3d_qlm4Xws&t=18m04s
  293. ↑ Patch 27.6.0.187190
  294. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlUWzrouoCo&t=1m27s
  295. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sCcRCgoo34&t=0m37s
  296. ↑ https://i.imgur.com/nrTzQqC.jpg
  297. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfkGUybFchE
  298. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzsy2xwlzdU
  299. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wdaoBvpX7A
  300. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNuKBjtlkhk Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  301. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DFVeo_KRY&t=0m20s Tested in Patch 5.0.1.13030 (2016-06-01)
  302. ↑ https://youtu.be/fTM9wsKT3rE Tested in Patch 8.2.2.19632
  303. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uinaRSHI-rQ Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (2015-09-29)
  304. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyZuw46vjAY Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (2015-09-29)
  305. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3i8jhc/varian_bug/
  306. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWJfdwzf9GU&t=1m10s
  307. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWJfdwzf9GU&t=2m51s
  308. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZNbVSMRTQA Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (2015-09-29)
  309. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rR99Z3sFAU Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (2015-09-29)
  310. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/596363b09f1ae1e78db7 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  311. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/28
  312. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYj6rVnIFuU
  313. ↑ Tested by Kybxd in Patch 10.0.0.22611
  314. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8IAqCAVSng Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  315. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFTOWbOvCso Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  316. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/133
  317. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzyMDfrlw4M
  318. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm8dXYc3q0U
  319. ↑ https://github.com/jleclanche/fireplace/issues/15
  320. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dSa0MiKEZU Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  321. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDojzLsRn4k Tested in Patch 3.2.0.10604 (2015-10-20)
  322. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3l7rl6/interesting_light_of_the_naru_interaction/ Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  323. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTa3vC9ZDpU Tested in Patch 3.2.0.10604 (2015-10-20)
  324. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXepIR0sw5Y Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  325. ↑ https://youtu.be/mSS1fI32J60 https://youtu.be/yhrw56me9Zo Tested in Patch 5.0.1.13030 (2016-06-01)
  326. ↑ http://www.bilibili.com/video/av11803058/ It can be inferred from 4m30s of this video that the new damage Bolf creates is still from the original source, not Bolf himself.
  327. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqiZAHscZCA Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  328. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpI9nS7C3Vo Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  329. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0wDEellWXE Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  330. ↑ https://youtu.be/5Pn7NM0Uz7U Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  331. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc0xYeqVvrE Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  332. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MObXMLTN23Y Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  333. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/532#issuecomment-219356258 Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  334. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/628
  335. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3r62nq/gaara_creative_lethal/cwlanb0
  336. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/20420603988
  337. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUL5tQ_el7E Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  338. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/722
  339. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-24. Attacking into a 5 Attack enemy minion using my 2 Health character. Despite having several playable cards in hand and sufficient mana to play them, as soon as the combat was initiated, all other options became de-highlighted.
  340. ↑ This isn't a Mechwarper, but a similar idea - at 0 mana, playing a 0 mana arcane missiles immediately lets you play the '1 mana Dragon's Breath' even before you see the minion die. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59OUp2E4F3E&t=1m55s
  341. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rornvd0OE_A. Tested in Patch 17.0.2.45932 (2020-06-26).
  342. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyTckUS46YI&t=33m00s Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  343. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82pMcaNFo4 Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  344. ↑ Ben Brode on Twitter (X). (2015-09-05). 
  345. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3agk6v/turn_time_has_been_reduced_from_90_to_70_seconds/
  346. ↑ For about a week after Curse of Naxxramas came out, Knife Jugglers were bugged and could throw knives at 0 Health characters.
  347. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVT21ZDmTuI Tested in Patch 2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  348. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/424o8u/a_friend_and_i_broke_hearthstone_during_tavern/
  349. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zggg-TzP040 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  350. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBFyROolHw
  351. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whg_WWCXH0Y
  352. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AahEuM0ArxQ Tested in Patch 5.0.1.13030 (2016-06-01)
  353. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNS20tL2Yvk
  354. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwdLQrF64f4&t=18m04s
  355. ↑ https://youtu.be/t5rkm_PLiWY
  356. ↑ https://youtu.be/q9I8dcOD09I
  357. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7204_eNcfDk Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  358. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKHd-051DU Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  359. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI6hu7Mp1u4
  360. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-TxcyUcplU
  361. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/48qmot/a_roller_coaster_of_emotions/ Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  362. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKHd-051DU Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  363. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKHd-051DU Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  364. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PicYnNrMdkw
  365. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3dq7e5/hearthstone_science_the_dominant_player_bug/ctbgz5j?context=3
  366. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ZDuqp6EOo Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  367. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKtwI467Z1g Tested in Patch 4.3.0.12266 (2016-04-14)
  368. ↑ https://youtu.be/grsOn8HUuiw
  369. ↑ http://imgur.com/a/KAeLr https://gist.github.com/culinko/9c5b584b365f7c934d72 Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  370. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNS20tL2Yvk Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  371. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPPVVr3Ohdc Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  372. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/5bfc95a5efef9563aa38f434607340f2 Tested in Patch 6.0.0.13921 (ONiK patch)
  373. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhL-lFd3DJk Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  374. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/d5ca1bebed362517a82b
  375. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceQGYDdzdUA&t=1m14s Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  376. ↑ https://youtu.be/hqtNi4_X1bY
  377. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhL-lFd3DJk
  378. ↑ https://gist.github.com/culinko/a9b72b75454ac78e637b#file-gistfile2-txt
  379. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0xQL2CrWeg&t=4m50s
  380. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QydqRtk7zhA Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  381. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDKGrm089u0 Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  382. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6LM5GjqeTE Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  383. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Zk5ZijXCE&t=6m25s
  384. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/652
  385. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeGVO_n2yA4
  386. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJMTaWsgfw
  387. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-y_4Bu0muE
  388. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-21. Played  Wild Pyromancer then  Starving Buzzard then  Unleash the Hounds. All Hounds were summoned; then Starving Buzzard activated for each; then Wild Pyromancer activated. Also tested in the other order: Played Buzzard, then Pyromancer, then Unleash - exact same result.
  389. ↑ Tested by User:Taohinton, 2015-02-07. Played Starving Buzzard then Knife Juggler; opponent then activated Snake Trap. Knife Juggler triggered from each Snake, then Buzzard drew three times once all had been summoned.
  390. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIKvpPcKI9c&t=1m45s
  391. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gizioWc_yx8
  392. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0xQL2CrWeg&t=11m28s
  393. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/Hearthstone/comments/36aedy/pretty_cool_piloted_shredder_combo/
  394. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLvmCli9tkg Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  395. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfd2TRwVeY
  396. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/2
  397. ↑ https://youtu.be/QjT3u2HEDxg
  398. ↑ https://youtu.be/ePl5ipCmxAo
  399. ↑ https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hearthstone/topic/20759378548#1
  400. ↑ Contains logs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYNWKSr-jqM
  401. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDI09-LmBzs&t=4m19s
  402. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNpUgSTEWFI&t=6m20s
  403. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0xQL2CrWeg&t=8m30s
  404. ↑ Observed by Patashu, May 22 2014. Opponent played a Lorewalker Cho and I got a copy from Mirror Entity. My copy always triggered first despite being summoned second.
  405. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5BMYBhnJWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdIl13FK3V4 (read the description!)
  406. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UauIhg8qX08&t=3m22s
  407. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LzJc_aLPr0
  408. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFo6ZfbNnZI&t=0m25s Note the sidebar, which indicates that Mogors were being made in an interleaved fashion , and they did the attack as soon as they were done - yet we see all of one side's go off first!
  409. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvyhb3GzVI Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  410. ↑ http://ls.duowan.com/1507/300812448963.html Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  411. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWftn94D1Sc&t=3m53s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  412. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WQQSCauLcE Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  413. ↑ http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/general-strategy/458084-interesting-sylvanas-test-results?page=2#26
  414. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tpw3Iy9EIw
  415. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veg98eft6VI Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  416. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3d_qlm4Xws&t=18m32s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  417. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/313#issuecomment-219225956
  418. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/56#issuecomment-161122606
  419. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBU0GCnkUlg
  420. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqhUQpxdVw
  421. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr2d5-371xA Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  422. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bqZS9MiLxE Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  423. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sHHQQbPJIM&t=8m55s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  424. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u73RAEmRPLk&t=6m1s Tested in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  425. ↑ Tested by ZeroRin aka WillyK in Patch_2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch). No screenshot/video.
  426. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmOuO5GOD9c in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  427. ↑ Tested by ZeroRin: [ZeroRin] hmm, the void caller's deathrattle don't check if you have demon in hand when queueing... why avenge do check [ZeroRin] with no demon in hand, cult master and void caller played in this order, then cast sacrificial pact
  428. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m321X1h0UtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyTIN5mvjhs Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  429. ↑ http://imgur.com/ov58pCN Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  430. ↑ https://youtu.be/GMegAEZHYG8 Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  431. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afqdiQbt-cQ Tested in Patch 3.0.0.9786 (TGT patch)
  432. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCKhbmHNLAs&t=6m39s Tested in Patch 2.7.0.9166 (Tavern Brawl patch)
  433. ↑ https://youtu.be/8Xnrhb1ugiI
  434. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/515
  435. ↑ https://youtu.be/WbYdPEocgdE
  436. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDfBHGq4mvk
  437. ↑ https://youtu.be/XdA_xw_Ei1M Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  438. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W52xmRRgvdU Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  439. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjTFRA-TiA4
  440. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckU78-6Hr0c Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  441. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr3nfMnoCRk Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  442. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grtcOf-g2Zc Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  443. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3f3oRNzJ0
  444. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-7qfkTmKZc Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  445. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLU5_TSo_20 Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  446. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5BTonvvCuk&t=1m43s
  447. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcniWFdCBKY Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  448. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=454wq9Q2tgA
  449. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmKuR0ufIjM Tested in Patch 4.1.0.10956 (2015-12-04)
  450. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/698
  451. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ZDuqp6EOo Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  452. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wDU3IpGFQ Tested in Patch 3.1.0.10357 (Mech War Tavern Brawl patch)
  453. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUzKLfsm13s&t=9m05s Tested in Patch 6.0.0.13921 (ONiK patch)
  454. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4gkyva/ragnaros_lightlord_play_is_it_a_glitch/ Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  455. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/20744094286 Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  456. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/18704976830
  457. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3skyme/anubisath_sentinel_bug/ Tested in Patch 4.0.0.10833 (LoE patch)
  458. ↑ http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/20743006151 Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  459. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/61#issuecomment-204999699 Tested in Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14)
  460. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMJ3EK6n2UI Tested in Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch)
  461. ↑ https://github.com/HearthSim/hs-bugs/issues/698
  462. ↑ http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Comprehensive_Rules
  463. ↑ Ben Brode on Twitter. (2014-09-14). 
  464. ↑ syah_hs on reddit. (2020-08-11). Retrieved on 2020-08-17.
  465. ↑ Ben Brode on Twitter. (2014-09-30). 
  466. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1s4gdw/myth_busted_redemption_revive_minion_randomly/
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