Ancestral Healing

Ancestral Healing is a shaman spell card, inducted into the Legacy set, formerly from the Basic set.

Strategy
Ancestral Healing is a useful card to take advantage of early trading. Using this card on sturdier early-game minions, like Zombie Chow or Spider Tank, after a successful trade allows them to be restored to full health and give them the powerful Taunt ability. As a bonus, since Ancestral Healing costs no mana, you can create a tempo advantage by trading early, restoring the damaged minion to full health, and then also playing another minion to keep the pressure on your opponent.

Late game minions can also take advantage of a full heal from this card. High health minions like, Boulderfist Ogre, can take damage, be healed, and their new Taunt ability will force your opponent into using more damage or removal on a card that has already gotten value.

A rare strategy, Ancestral Healing can also be used to allow the player to attack an enemy minion that is shielded by Taunt minions. For example, if the opponent has an Ogre Brute and a Target Dummy, the player can use Ancestral Healing on the Ogre Brute, granting it Taunt and thus allowing the player to attack it. However, due to Ancestral Healing's healing effect, this is less desirable if the target is not already at full Health, or if the player is not able to defeat them in a single attack.

Lore
was a shaman talent in World of Warcraft that improved the shaman's healing abilities. It was removed with . Communication with the ancestors is a central aspect of shamanism, also reflected in Ancestral Spirit.

Trivia

 * Ancestral Healing was removed for selection in Arena on September 15, 2016 but was reinstated on December 9, 2018.
 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Onyxia Treasure" series, for the card Natural Alignment.

Patch changes

 * Moved from Basic to Legacy set.