Fandral Staghelm

Fandral Staghelm is a legendary druid minion card, from the Whispers of the Old Gods set.

Transformed minions
When a card with two Choose One options involving transform effects is played while controlling Fandral Staghelm, a unique minion will be produced that combines the effects of both options.


 * Cards


 * Resulting minions

Previous bugs

 * Before Patch 9.0.0.20457, damaging effects (Wrath and Starfall) were combined into one instance of damage, rather than dealing damage twice. This meant that Spell Damage was only applied once, not twice.
 * Before Patch 9.0.0.20457, using Starfall on a friendly minion dealt 7 damage instead of 5. (The spell's effects of 5 damage to target minion and 2 damage to all enemy minions were combined into 7 damage to target then 2 to all other enemy minions - but they forgot to handle the case where Starfall's target is friendly, not enemy.)

Strategy
Most of the Druid's Choose One effects are balanced so that each effect is reasonable for the Mana cost. Gaining both effects will drastically increase the value of each of your Choose One cards, such as turning Ancient of War into a 10/10 Taunt Minion for 7 Mana, Raven Idol allowing you to discover two cards for only 1 Mana, Nourish providing you with both 2 Mana Crystals as well as 3 cards, and many more.

While it would be ideal to keep Fandral Staghelm on the field as long as possible to benefit from his fantastic effect, your opponent will likely plan to annihilate him as soon as they possibly can. Taunt minions can protect him from attacks; most fittingly, Mark of Nature can provide a friendly minion with +4/4 and Taunt for only 3 Mana, converting it into a powerful guardian to keep Staghelm safe. Unfortunately there's no real way to keep him save from removal via spells, so unless you are able to bait your opponent's removal cards and are certain they have no option to destroy Staghelm, it would usually be wise to save him for your late game, where you can get off a few Choose One effects the turn he's summoned. Even if he's destroyed the following turn, you'll have gained enough added value from his presence that the board will most likely be turned entirely in your favor.

Quotes

 * Summon
 * Behold the rage of the Firelands.


 * When summoned against Tyrande:
 * You would lead our people to ruin!


 * Attack
 * Nothing but ash!

Lore

 * '' was formerly the of, succeeding Malfurion Stormrage after he was lost in the . He was in a constant power struggle with , High Priestess of , for leadership of the night elf people, and was one of the architects of the plan to create . After it was revealed that he had been corrupted by the Nightmare himself and had prolonged Malfurion's absence, Fandral eventually descended into madness and was to be imprisoned by the . He was captured when he was being moved to  from  and turned into the first Druid of the Flame, becoming the new , until he is killed during the final battle against Ragnaros.

Trivia

 * This card marked the first time a set had added new cards to another set, with Whispers of the Old Gods serving to add three new minions to the Classic, Blackrock Mountain and The Grand Tournament sets.
 * Fandral Staghelm's entrance music is taken from Druids of the Flame.

Patch changes

 * In order to accomodate for Malfurion the Pestilent's Plague Lord Hero Power, Fandral Staghelm now reads: Your Choose One cards and powers have both effects combined. Furthermore, damage-dealing Choose One cards are now processed as two separate damage events; previously they were combined into a single event.
 * Added.