Spirit of the Raptor

Spirit of the Raptor is a rare druid minion card, from the Rastakhan's Rumble set.

Strategy
Left unchecked, Spirit of the Raptor can result in a great amount of draw value. Its one-turn Stealth will protect it from harm long enough for you to get some good attacks into trigger its effect. Cards such as Gonk, the Raptor or Hench-Clan Thug which trigger each time you attack work well with Spirit of the Raptor, while cards that trigger each time you draw such as Untamed Beastmaster and Dollmaster Dorian will be helped by Spirit of the Raptor's card draw.

Effects that increase your hero's attack, such as Pounce or Bite, or new Hero Powers that improve your attack, such as Plague Lord or Dire Shapeshift, can make killing minions easier.

Being odd, Spirit of the Raptor can be used with Baku the Mooneater; Baku's effect will improve your hero's attack potential, making kills easier to secure.

Lore
The Spirit of the Raptor is, as the name suggests, a spiritual manifestation of Gonk, the raptor.

Trivia

 * Originally during the development of Rastakhan's Rumble, before Spirit cards were referred to as "Spirits", Spirit of the Raptor was known as "Shrine to Gonk" and had the card text "Can't attack or be attacked. Your hero has Windfury." Gonk, the Raptor himself instead gave a bonus when the player's hero attacked and killed minions. The effects of Gonk and the Spirit were eventually swapped since the designers found that giving their hero the ability to "attack a whole bunch" was the more exciting of the two and thus belonged better on Gonk. Furthermore, the accompanying deck needed more resources since players would spend so many of their resources on buffing their hero's Attack, so they felt that it made sense to give a card draw effect to the Spirit.

Patch changes

 * Added.