Hand

The hand is where each player keeps the cards currently available to them. The player can see their hand face-up at the bottom of the screen, while the opponent's hand is shown face-down at the top of the screen.

Mechanics
The player can only play cards that are currently in their hand. Players place cards into their hand through drawing cards from their deck. A few other methods such as return effects and generate effects can also add cards to the player's hand.

Players can have a maximum of 10 cards in their hand at any time, unless Valdris Felgorge was played. Attempting to add a card to the hand when it is already full will cause that card to be destroyed, sometimes referred to as overdraw. Cards destroyed in this way are revealed to both players.

Playing a card removes it from the player's hand, and puts it into play. This is the main way for players to empty their hand. The only other way is through discard effects, which force the player to discard cards from their hand without playing them. Like overdraw, discard effects reveal the discarded cards to both players.

Hand size has some synergy with specific cards, such as Mountain Giant, Midnight Drake and Twilight Drake. It can also have strategic impact on the use of discard effects, and card draw mechanics such as Northshire Cleric.

Strategy
Hand tracking is a strategy used to track and predict what cards are in the opponent's hand. This can also be done during the mulligan phase to see how many cards the opponent kept in their opening hand.

For tips related to drawing cards and the size of your hand, see Card draw.

Related cards
Certain cards have effects specifically related to the size or contents of the player's hand; these are listed below.

For cards with effect that activate while in the player's hand, see In-hand effect.