Forgetful


 * "Oops..." - Dunemaul Shaman

Forgetful, previously known as clumsy, is an ability which grants a minion or weapon a 50% chance of attacking the wrong enemy. Forgetful is a type of triggered effect.

While the term forgetful is not featured in card text or otherwise found in-game, it can be found in the game data for these cards. The precise same text is found on all forgetful cards: 50% chance to attack the wrong enemy. This wording was played on with Optimistic Ogre, whose text reads 50% chance to attack the correct enemy, an effect which is functionally equivalent but more positively framed.

Introduced with Goblins vs Gnomes, the forgetful effect is currently limited to ogres and related cards.

Forgetful and Secrets
The forgetful effect triggers during the same step of the attack sequence as most Secrets. When a forgetful minion attack triggers a Secret, the effect that triggers first is determined by which was played first. This can make order of play extremely important.


 * Example 1: An Ogre Brute, which was played before an enemy Noble Sacrifice, attacks an enemy. The forgetful effect triggers first; Noble Sacrifice will then activate, and whichever target the Ogre Brute had selected, he will instead hit the Defender.
 * Example 2: An Ogre Brute, which was played after an enemy Noble Sacrifice, attacks an enemy. Noble Sacrifice activates first, summoning a Defender; the Ogre Brute's forgetful effect will then activate, giving him a chance to instead strike another target, including his original target, thus overriding the secret's Taunt-like effect.

Secrets that activate from an attack will still activate even if the forgetful effect interrupts the attack. Attack-based Secrets will also check for activation each time a different attack is set in motion by the forgetful effect, if they were not already activated by an earlier planned attack.


 * Example 1: An Ogre Brute, which was played before an enemy Explosive Trap, attacks the enemy hero but forgetful triggers, causing it to instead attack a minion. The Explosive Trap will activate even though the Brute is no longer attacking the player, prior to the Ogre Brute attacking its new target. If this destroys the Brute, the new attack will be aborted.
 * Example 2: An Ogre Brute, which was played after an enemy Explosive Trap, attacks a minion but forgetful triggers, causing it to instead attack the enemy hero. The Explosive Trap goes off even though the Brute did not originally attack the player.

Probability

 * With only the enemy hero as a hostile target, a forgetful character has a 100% chance to hit them, effectively negating its triggered effect.


 * With a single minion on the field, a forgetful character has a 50% chance of hitting its intended target, and a 50% chance of hitting the other.


 * With a 50% chance of hitting the wrong target, the percentage likelihood of any specific other enemy character being struck is 50 / [number of other enemy targets] percent, or 1 in 2 * [number of other enemy targets].

Strategy
The main significance of the forgetful effect is that with multiple targets available, the player cannot be sure which target will be hit. This makes its use less advisable when there are high-Attack enemy minions on the board (unless they are desirable targets), as hitting them will cause the player a lot of damage. It adds further unpredictability when playing against minions such as Boom Bots.

Forgetful can be useful for potentially bypassing Taunt minions. For example, with 1 Taunt minion and 3 non-Taunt minions on the field, attacking the Taunt using a forgetful minion will have a 50% of hitting the Taunt, and a 12.5% chance of hitting any one of the other targets.

This can be useful for removing protected minions, or even for dealing lethal damage to the opponent themselves. For example, with only 1 Taunt minion on the field, attacking the Taunt using a forgetful minion or weapon will have a 50% chance of bypassing the Taunt and striking the enemy hero. In close games this chance at extra damage can allow players to close the gap.

Because of this possibility, when seeking to prevent an opponent with forgetful cards from hitting your hero while behind a taunt, it is effective to summon as many minions onto the field as possible. Each acts to decrease the likelihood of an attack reaching your hero should the attacker miss its intended target.

For further strategy and specific uses, see individual card pages.

Terminology and lore
There is no official term for the "50% chance to attack the wrong enemy" ability. The term forgetful is currently preferred by the wiki due to its presence in the game data, where it is used to mark cards with the ability. However, this is still an unofficial term, and is not used in-game.

The ability was first previewed in the Goblins vs Gnomes: It's Not Ogre Till It's Ogre blog. The pertinent section reads:


 * ''The large, brutish, often clumsy ogres have a knack for “CRUSH BIG THING INTO SMALL THINGS,” making them a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Don’t have a trash compactor handy to mash that malfunctioning mech into spare parts? Get ogre it! Ogres aren’t particularly careful in what they hit and don’t take orders kindly—as long as they hit something, they’re satisfied. This makes them both unpredictable and dangerous in combat.


 * In Goblins vs Gnomes'', many ogres will have the “50% chance to attack the wrong enemy” card text, reflecting their wild and uncontrollable nature. Like previously mentioned, ogres don’t care about what they hit as long as they hit “something,” so their ability can also potentially bypass Taunt and Stealth if one of their wild swings manages to connect. When you see an Ogre on the battlefield, watch out; something is about to get smashed!


 * [emphasis added]

This text provides multiple possible terms - clumsy, wild, uncontrollable, careless - but also several possible lore interpretations for the ability. Forgetful suggests ogres frequently forget which target to attack. This is reinforced by Ogre Brute's trigger quote, "Wait... who?". However, clumsy suggests ogres attack the wrong target by accident, which fits with Dunemaul Shaman's trigger quote, "Oops". Ogre Ninja on the other hand appears to mis-target due to disagreements between its two heads - "No! That one." - although this could be interpreted as a kind of forgetfulness, or possibly the second head proving "wild and uncontrollable". None of the quotes appear to confirm the concept that ogres "don't care about what they hit". The only related non-minion, Ogre Warmaul, presumably imbues the user with some characteristic of these ogres, or else has a mind of its own.

Patch changes

 * Optimistic Ogre added.
 * Added.