Barnes

Barnes is a legendary neutral minion card, from the One Night in Karazhan set.

Strategy
This card works best in a deck with minions with useful effects that don't rely on their stats for value, typically ones with strong end-of-turn or Deathrattle effects such as Ragnaros the Firelord or Sylvanas Windrunner. One of the best combo with Barnes is Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound, where the 1/1 Y'Shaarj can pull the original from the deck. In decks that maximize the chance of this happening, Barnes turns into a crushing Turn 5 play. Another minion to abuse Barnes with is Kael'thas Sunstrider, allowing you to cheat out big spells very early, especially with Lightning Bloom for Druids/Shamans. Druids can combine this with heavy card draw spells to devastate the opponent very early.

Barnes is a very powerful enabler for Resurrection effects, since he can add a high-cost minion to the pool of dead minions to be resurrected without spending the mana to summon them, allowing them to be put on board far earlier than intended, as well as adding an additional copy of that minion to the pool to increase the chances of it being summoned. Copy effects like Carnivorous Cube are also effective on it, creating a copy of the original minion with its full stats. Although Barnes' death will add himself to the death pool, it's the cheapest card that can summon high-cost minions early compared to alternatives like Shadow Essence, which makes Barnes worth the risk and not a huge loss with a more controllable resurrection effect like Eternal Servitude.

Alternatively, with a Silence in hand, this card can be used to produce regular copies of high-stat minions. The priest's Purify works especially well to Silence the copies produced by this minion's Battlecry, resulting in a full-stats, full-value copy of the minion, albeit at the cost of removing their effect.

Also, be wary when using Barnes in a deck that includes cards with negative deathrattles or effects such as Doomsayer, Abomination or Darnassus Aspirant.

Quotes

 * Summon
 * Tonight, a tale of glorious redemption.
 * Tonight, a tale of terrible tragedy.
 * Tonight, a tale of wonder and magic.
 * Tonight, a tale of long lost worlds.
 * Tonight, a tale of true terror.


 * Attack
 * On with the show!

Lore

 * "The second level of Karazhan is the world-famous Opera. Barnes runs the Opera, and he's super-excited about tonight's event. Barnes want to run one last rehearsal, and he loves audience participation. So you'll have to help Barnes put on three great plays, before he'll let you up through the tower."

Barnes is the stage manager of the Karazhan opera house, booking the very best singers and actors from around the world to perform a variety of classic works.

A Night at the Opera!

 * ''"Welcome, party-goers! I am Barnes, the stage manager, and this is the finest theater in Azeroth. Medivh has an incredible show planned for the party. Come, I’ll show you around—we might even have time for a little improv!"


 * ''"Karazhan’s opera house is the height of elegance and sophistication, and these very planks of wood have seen some of the greatest stories of the age unfold with pathos and grandeur. Glorious, but that’s in the past! Never look back, darlings—it distracts from the FUTURE! The show we have in store tonight will put them all to shame. I predict that these features will be so great, so EPIC, that people will return in droves again, and again, and again—just to catch a glimpse of their favorite play!"


 * ''"Ah, but there will be no shows if there are no sets. Sadly, my crew are all late, or misplaced their guild cards, or are lost somewhere in Karazhan. That last one is a surprisingly common occurrence, actually . . . No matter! Anyway, I’m sure you’ll do fine, you look like naturals. I’m so excited to begin!"


 * ''"Oh settle down. It’s clear to see that you’re all heroes, so a total stranger asking you to perform menial labor should feel quite familiar. Oh, you want a reward? Well, I can promise you the greatest reward imaginable if we can finish in time. Ah, now I’ve got your attention! Now let’s see. . . ."


 * ''"Let’s get this tower set up. Yes! It looks just like real stone, doesn’t it? That’s because it IS real stone. Originally, Medivh was going to magic it into place, but since he’s busy now I’ll just have to make do. Now, get in there and really put your backs into it and HEAVE! Oh, well done. Our lead actress will look positively radiant all the way up there."


 * ''"Here, take these hammers—this quaint forest cottage won’t build itself, you know! I mean, it was supposed to build itself, but with Medivh occupied doing who knows what, we will just have to get our hands dirty. And by “we”, I of course mean “you”."


 * ''"Good job! That cottage is looking really quaint! Now we’ll just need to do just a tiny little bit of sewing and you’re all done. How many costumes? Well, all of them actually—I’m no seamstress. Medivh was going to—well, nevermind what Medivh was going to do. I’m sure that with a whirlwind of activity we’ll be done in no time! The tailoring supplies are in those cabinets. Now let’s hustle!"


 * ''"Ah, it appears that Moroes has returned to take you off my hands. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but at least everything is finally prepared for the show tonight! I hope you enjoy the party! And get some rest before the festivities, you all look exhausted!"


 * "Oh, your reward? Why, a job well done, of course!"

In World of Warcraft


As with most of the mortals in Karazhan, in World of Warcraft Barnes is dead, appearing in the opera house as a ghost to relive his duties during life... albeit with a slightly more sinister twist to the proceedings.


 * '' is the spectral Stage Manager who announces the night's presentation during the Opera Event in Karazhan. One of three boss presentations will appear, each based on famous stories or tales.


 * Barnes
 * ''Finally, everything is in place. Are you ready for your big stage debut?
 * Player
 * I'm not an actor.
 * Barnes
 * ''Don't worry, you'll be fine. You look like a natural!
 * Player
 * Ok, I'll give it a try, then.
 * Barnes
 * Splendid. I'm going to get the audience ready.  Break a leg!

Design
Designer Peter Whalen describes Barnes as a perfect example of a story character and card design unexpectedly fitting together:


 * "The medium-sized minion, summon a 1/1 copy from your deck--that was floating around for a while. It was a lot of fun, it made for interesting deck-building decisions, and interesting gameplay, it's good with a bunch of different things. It's a really interesting neutral legendary. And we knew we wanted to do Barnes in the set. Barnes is very important to Karazhan, he's one of the major story characters. So we looked at these two designs and thought, wait, the 1/1 we're summoning is just an actor. It's just representing a minion from your deck. This is a perfect fit for Barnes. We made that connection and we got that animation running for Barnes with the spotlight, it really comes together and sells that story."

Patch changes

 * Now costs 5 mana. (Up from 4).
 * The summoned minion now retains enchantments from the original card in deck.
 * Added.