Magnetic

Magnetic
Play this to the left of a Mech to fuse them together!

A minion being Magnetized.

Magnetic is an ability mostly seen in Mech minions which allows multiple minions to be merged together. Playing a Magnetic minion to the left of an existing Mech will automatically cause the Magnetic minion to become an enchantment, adding its stats and text (other than Magnetic) to the combined Mech.

Notes

• By default, Magnetic minions can only be combined with Mechs. Occasionally it is specified that a card can also combine with other minion types, such as in the case of Absorbent Parasite.
• A Magnetic card can be played while the player's board is full, but only to combine it with another mech.
  • Prior to Patch 26.2.0.174258, Magnetic cards could not be played if the player's board was full, not even to Magnetize it.
• If you use a Magnetic card to upgrade a mech, that upgrade is treated as an enchantment, not as a transformation. So, for example, if the mech is silenced or returned to the hand, it loses all the effects it got from the magnetizing.
• The act of playing a Magnetic minion and combinging it with another mech is referred to as Magnetizing, as denoted by certain cards, such as Invent-o-matic.
• Magnetizing counts as playing a minion but not summoning a minion. This means on-play effects will trigger, while certain on-summon effects will not.
  • Magnetic minions are still considered summoned while entering play before their effect triggers. On-board enchantments are considered and applied before a Magnetic minion attaches to a Mech.
    • Example: High Priest Amet is on the board. Skaterbot is played to magnetize onto a Wargear. Skaterbot becomes a 1/7 after it is played, and then it adds +1/+7 to Wargear.
  • The exception are on-play effects that require a target, such as Hobgoblin or Explosive Runes. Since the Magnetic minion is no longer on the board when these effects would resolve, they do not trigger.
• In-hand enchantments given to Magnetic minions are considered part of the Magnetic effect when attached to another Mech. For example, Kangor's Endless Army will resurrect a Mech with both the Magnetic buff and the in-hand enchantment.
• In-hand enchantments which give Deathrattle-effects (i.e. Val'anyr) are attached to the target mech all the same. The Deathrattle effect of the minion that has been enhanced by a magnetic mech with an in-hand Deathrattle enchantment does not show up in the tooltip of that unit. The Deathrattle symbol under the unit does show up however and the Deathrattle effect is executed upon destruction of the minion as expected.

Cards with Magnetic

This section lists minions which are Magnetic or have the ability to become Magnetic when played.

Collectible

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Uncollectible

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Sources of Magnetic

Magnetic-generating cards

This section lists cards which generate Magnetic minions.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Magnetic-granting cards

This section lists cards which grant the Magnetic ability to other minions or to itself.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Related cards

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Achievements

	Category	Name	Description	Rewards
	Gameplay - Core (Wolf) - Neutral	Opposites Attract	Play 100 Magnetic minions.	10
	Gameplay - Core (Wolf) - Neutral	Opposites Attract	Play 200 Magnetic minions.	10

History

When Blizzard started work on The Boomsday Project, they knew they wanted to bring the Mech minion type back in a big way and searched for a mechanic that celebrated Mechs but also felt different from the Mechs in Goblins vs Gnomes, the expansion that first introduced the minion type. They initially had the idea of Mechs that could "plug-and-play" into each other, leading to the creation of a minion mechanic called Modular with various experimental implementations. One version of Modular was a type of Choose One effect which presented the player with a choice of playing the card as a minion or attaching it to an existing minion as an enchantment. However, it felt overly clunky having to choose each time one played a Modular card. Ultimately, one designer had the idea of Modular minions being "sticky": they would attach to existing Mechs if played next to them, but would function as standalone minions if they weren't. In the very first prototype of this mechanic, the player had to hover the Modular card directly over the existing minion if they wanted them to attach. However, this was "always super fidgety" and led to a lot of misplays, especially on smaller phone screens. The team iterated on the idea and came up with directional implementation, which acts like magnetic poles. From there, they changed the name of the Modular mechanic to Magnetic to better explain its functionality.

In general, Magnetic Mechs have higher Health than Attack, as the team wanted to mitigate the burst potential players can get from them.

While Magnetic minions can be attached to each other, Blizzard wanted to ensure there were some good, resilient, neutral targets to Magnetize onto as well and created several cards along this theme, such as Upgradeable Framebot.

Trivia

• Magnetic is the first keyword to specifically interact with a minion's type.

Patch changes

• Patch 26.2.0.174258 (2023-05-09): Magnetic minions can now be Magnetized onto other minions even when the player's board is full.
• Patch 12.0.0.25770 (2018-08-02): Added.