Flamestrike

Flamestrike is a mage spell card, inducted into the Legacy set, formerly from the Basic set.

Strategy
Flamestrike is potentially one of the most powerful cards in the mage's arsenal. While cards like Polymorph and Fireball excel at dealing with single targets, Flamestrike can clear an entire board of minions with a single cast. Flamestrike is essentially a far more powerful version of Arcane Explosion.

Flamestrike's already formidable powers can be improved with Spell Damage to be even more effective. The majority of minions will be destroyed by a Flamestrike, although tougher ones may require some additional damage.

Flamestrike's high mana cost prohibits too much combo play, but still allows room for lower-cost instant damage spells like Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Frostbolt, Ice Lance and/or the hero power Fireblast. Using these spells in combination (especially with spell damage minions) can allow the mage to destroy several high-health minions in a single turn.

As with any area of effect spell, Flamestrike is ideally reserved until it can be used on a sizeable enemy force. However, in a pinch Flamestrike can serve just as well as a (somewhat expensive) single-target attack.

Lore

 * ''"What's betta den fire? More fire, mon!" —Ta'zo

Flamestrike is a targeted area of effect spell available to all mages. It deals instant damage and applies a damage over time effect to all enemies in the targeted area. It first appeared as a long-channelled AoE spell of Blood Mages in .

Trivia

 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Heroes of Azeroth" series, depicting the spell.

Patch changes

 * Moved from Basic to Legacy set.
 * Now appears in Arena drafts 50% less often.
 * No longer deals damage to heroes.
 * Previously: ''Deal 4 damage to all enemies. [7 mana].
 * No longer deals damage to heroes.
 * Previously: ''Deal 4 damage to all enemies. [7 mana].