Purify

Purify is a Common Priest spell card from the One Night in Karazhan set.

Strategy
This card's Silence effect makes target selection critical. Any plain, unenchanted minion will provide no drawback, as will Battlecry minions and those with unimportant abilities. However, this spell is best when used on a target with a negative enchantment or undesirable card text. As well as hostile effects such as Corruption, Freeze effects and Power Word: Glory, Purify works very well with the 1/1 copies created by Herald Volazj or Barnes, especially if the copy is a high stat minion like a Giant or legendary Dragon. Purify is best included in a deck with such cards.

Purify can also work with Ancient Watcher, Eerie Statue, and Humongous Razorleaf, but mostly provides only a tempo advantage, since the overall mana cost of these combos is the same as alternatives like Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre. For example, playing a turn 2 Ancient Watcher followed by a turn 3 Purify will give the player a usable 4/5 on turn 3, where a Chillwind Yeti would not be active until turn 5. However, such combos require having both cards in hand, making them unreliable.

Purify's card draw effect compensates for the spell's relatively low value, putting it a step above Silence, although it is limited to friendly targets. This can also help to shrink the player's deck, producing higher turnover and increasing the odds of finding key cards.

Purify has synergy with Ragnaros the Firelord when it is important to deal 8 damage to a specific target, removing his end of turn effect but in turn allowing the player to command him to attack.

Despite its potential for novel applications the spell is considered by most serious players to be a very poor card in most decks, although it has been described as "awesome" and extremely fun in the right deck (see Silence Priest).

The release of Journey to Un'Goro has provided more minions that benefit from being Silenced, such as Humongous Razorleaf and Frozen Crusher.

Lore
is a Holy and Discipline ability from World of Warcraft that removes harmful magic and disease effects on a friendly target. The spell's Hearthstone incarnation could be used to remove harmful enchantments, although it is also capable of removing very useful abilities.

Trivia

 * Prior to the release of One Night in Karazhan, Purify was the subject of widespread condemnation from players and streamers, becoming the latest to gain the accolade of "the [worst] card in the game" until To My Side! This was partly due to the card's poorness, but also in part to the ongoing weakness of the priest class, which the new card not only did nothing to alleviate but in fact threatened to exacerbate through its presence in the Arena. The outcry led to a video response by Ben Brode as part of the Designer Insights series, in which he conceded that Purify was not strong, but explained that it was intended to be fun and interesting rather than a tier 1 card. He did however admit that releasing it with One Night in Karazhan was bad timing, explaining that the team had underestimated the growing frustration from players toward the weakness of the priest class, due in part to the card having been conceived and tested many weeks earlier. The video also announced that Purify would be specifically excluded from selection in the Arena, mostly removing its impact on that game mode, and making it the first non-Promo card to be excluded from the Arena besides C'Thun and the related cards.

Patch changes

 * Holy spell school added.
 * Added.