Verdant Longneck

Verdant Longneck is a common druid minion card, from the Journey to Un'Goro set.

Strategy
Without its Battlecry, this card is identical to a Lost Tallstrider, a neutral card from Goblins vs Gnomes, and very similar to Savage Combatant, a druid card from The Grand Tournament, both costing one mana less.

Ultimately the value of this card will be determined by your luck and the versatility of its adaptations, of which you will only be able to chose from a random selection of three.
 * Choosing the health boosting option will give it the same stat-line as a Dark Arakkoa (non-beast) for one mana less, without the Taunt or C'Thun synergy.
 * Choosing the attack boosting option gives it an unusual 8/4 stat-line, although a minion with such relatively low health is vulnerable to cheap removal.
 * Selecting the +1/+1 option gives it good stats for its cost although not exceptionally so.
 * With the temporary Stealth adaptation it can be compared to the Classic set Stranglethorn Tiger, which has one more health and indefinite Stealth.
 * With the Taunt option it is a Beast version of Booty Bay Bodyguard or Evil Heckler, though at one mana more than Heckler.
 * If the poison choice is selected it becomes one of the beefiest poisonous minions in the game with the exception of other adapt minions. It has more ability to hit the face with 3 more Attack than Emperor Cobra or Maexxna, at the cost of 2 more mana over the Cobra or less survivability compared to Maexxna.
 * With the Windfury option it effectively becomes a Grotesque Dragonhawk with one less health at a 2 mana discount.
 * The Elusive option makes the minion harder to remove by making it un-targetable by spells and Hero Powers. The last Elusive option at this mid-range power level was Spectral Knight, no longer available in Standard format.
 * The Deathrattle option of "summon two 1/1 plants" makes it harder to completely remove this minion, and could be used to set up for AoE buff synergy. Note that it does not synergize with N'Zoth as it does not feature the Deathrattle keyword on its original card text.
 * The Divine Shield option will allow Verdant Longneck to trade favorably, as its five Attack allows it to kill the majority of minions that will be on the board by turn 5. This option will effectively turn Verdant Longneck into a Dalaran Crusader with a beast tag.

Lore
While s aplenty have been previously known to exist all over, -like species like this Longneck were unique to Hearthstone at the time of release. They may have later served as the inspiration for the s introduced in .

Trivia

 * Verdant Longneck was designed to showcase the new Adapt mechanic in "its simplest form". The designers chose a druid card in order to combine Adapt with Beast synergy.

Patch changes

 * Added.