Ysera (Classic)

This is the Classic format version of Ysera, a legendary neutral minion card.

For more information, see the original version.

Strategy
Ysera is used for both her stats and her utility. The fact that she has 12 health makes her very hard to kill, and having exactly 4 attack allows her to avoid Shadow Word: Pain, Death and Big Game Hunter. At the end of your turn, she gives you one of 5 powerful and mana-efficient Dream Cards. This ability to create above curve cards can make Ysera a game finisher, as if she lives more than two turns you will gain an almost insurmountable advantage. In aggro matchups, Ysera might be too slow to save you, but control decks hate seeing this card, especially if they don't have an answer to it.

The downsides of Ysera are her high cost, which usually prevents you from playing her until later turns (Druids with cards like Innervate and Wild Growth can sometimes get around this), and the unpredictability of her Dream Card generation, which will sometimes see the player repeatedly gaining cards they cannot use or would not help them.

Dream
Dream can be used either defensively or offensively. It can be used to remove a high-damage minion from your opponent's board, pushing its damage back a turn, or removing an enemy Taunt to then attack your opponent directly during that turn. Alternately, it can be used to remove one of your own minions, such as one that is heavily damaged so that it can be replayed at full health (eg. to keep a Taunt minion alive longer, or nullify a player's attempt to whittle Ysera down).

Offensively, if you have a Charge minion already in play, you can use Dream to return it to your hand after it has been used to attack, then play it right away and attack with it again. It can also be used to reuse a Battlecry minion that is already in play to get its effects a second time.

Dream also synergizes with Nightmare, allowing a minion buffed with Nightmare to be reused later, and can also be used to save a minion under similar effects, such as Corruption.

Emerald Drake
Emerald Drake is useful for getting another high-Attack minion into play to assist in quickly burning your opponent down.

Laughing Sister
The advantage of Laughing Sister is its "elusive" ability, which usually forces the opponent to trade minions into it or attack it with their hero, weakening themselves or their own defenses, or use AoE removal. Additionally, it is one of the sturdiest minions that can be summoned for 3 mana, with its health matched only by Felguard, Injured Blademaster, and King Mukla, but without any drawbacks. However, Laughing Sister's statline is often inconsequential at the point in the game where Ysera comes into play, meaning it is generally considered the weakest of the Dream Cards.

Nightmare
Nightmare can be used either offensively or defensively. Seeing as the minion it gets used on will be destroyed at the start of your next turn, it could either be used to buff up a defensive minion (such as one with Taunt) to help you survive for another round, or it could be used in an offensive manner, buffing up the damage of a minion to turn the game around or as the extra points of damage to give you a win. Comboing with a minion with Windfury, such as a damaged Raging Worgen, can be devastating. Due to the destroy effect, it can also be combined with Freeze effects such as Ice Lance or Frost Elemental to safely remove large threats from the board. Combining it with a return character card such as Dream will also save the minion from destruction after attacking with it.

Nightmare can be applied to get the most use of a minion that is going to die anyway — for example, if it is under a similar delayed destroy effect such as Corruption, or about to be rammed into an enemy minion that would otherwise destroy it.

Ysera Awakens
Because of Ysera's high mana cost and low immediate board impact, Ysera Awakens is often the best and most mana-efficient card to receive against aggressive decks, being better than Hellfire. Even against control matchups, this can be a reliable finisher, often comboing with Malygos or Prophet Velen to increase the damage even more.

Ysera Awakens can be comboed with a heal such as Healing Touch or Lay on Hands to wreak havoc on your opponent while leaving your own hero unscathed. You could also combo it with Holy Fire to deal 10 damage and still leave your hero undamaged.

Druids can combo Ysera Awakens with Soul of the Forest. Upon activating Ysera Awakens you will destroy the majority of minions on the board, which will activate your minions' newly-granted Deathrattles to summon Treants, thus retaining board control while eliminating your opponent's.

Patch changes

 * Added.