Battlecry is one of the keywords in Blizzard’s card game Hearthstone. In fact, it’s one of the most common mechanics in the entire game. Battlecry card does something when entering the board from your hand – in other words, the effect is activated after you play the card. For example, “Battlecry: Draw a card.” makes you draw a card after you play it from your hand.
Battlecry is an evergreen keyword, a keyword that is not tied to a specific expansion and has been used across multiple sets already. It means that there’s a very high chance that it will appear again in future expansions.
Battlecry Extra Information
- Battlecry is mostly present on minions, but also weapons and hero cards. Spells don’t have this keyword, because they’re all sort of a “Battlecry” – they do something after you play them.
- Battlecry only activates when you play the card from your hand, not summon it in any way. For example, if you play Dirty Rat and it pulls a minion from your opponent’s hand, its Battlecry won’t activate. Similarly, transforming minions into ones with Battlecry (e.g. through Evolve) doesn’t activate their effects.
- Battlecry effects trigger once, when entering play. On subsequent turns, you can ignore the Battlecry part of card’s text, because it doesn’t matter. The only way to get the effect again is by bouncing the minion back to hand and replaying it.
- If Battlecry requires a target, you need to pick it right after playing the minion. You can’t opt-out of picking a target – you always need to select something. Keep that in mind when e.g. playing a minion that deals damage to another minion – if only friendly minions are present, you will have to pick one of them.
- If there is no valid target for the Battlecry, it will be ignored and the minion will just drop on the board. Keep in mind that the minion can’t target itself with a Battlecry.
- Choose One and Combo effects work similarly to Battlecries, but they are not considered Battlecries for the sake of synergies.
Battlecry Strategy
- Most of the Battlecry effects are desirable because they do something immediately. Usually, even if minion with Battlecry gets removed by your opponent, it’s not the end of the world, because it already got some value – maybe it drew you a card, maybe it dealt some damage etc.
- Some Battlecries are so strong that they might be worth replaying. Certain decks include ways to bounce back Battlecry minions to the hand in order to replay them. The most common example would be Rogue’s Shadowstep, which is commonly used on strong Battlecry cards to play them again at discount.
- Battlecry effects often come at the penalty of stats, but if the effect is strong enough, the sacrifice is worth it. Don’t be afraid to use a Battlecry minion with low stats if the ability is very impactful.
- In Wild format, you can double the effect of any Battlecry card with Brann Bronzebeard.
List of Battlecry Cards
A full list of Battlecry cards is so long that copying it here would be pointless. Click here if you want to see it.
Here are some examples of cards with Battlecry keyword:
