Avenge

Avenge is a common paladin spell card, from the Naxxramas set.

Other versions

 * Removed
 * Wild Event

Deathrattles and death-related effects

 * Avenge's trigger and effect have a number of subtleties to consider when minions with Deathrattle, or death-related effects such as Redemption, are involved. This is particularly true when those effects add, remove, or damage minions on the Paladin's side of the board, such as with Sludge Belcher or Sylvanas Windrunner; with Anub'ar Ambusher; or with Abomination.

(For a much more extensive discussion of sequences of events, see the advanced rulebook.)
 * A review of the sequence of relevant events that occur with minion death (including multiple minion death) is useful before considering specific interactions.
 * 1) All minions that have suffered lethal damage or destroy effects die and are removed from the board
 * 2) Each minion's death will now be resolved, in the order in which the minions were put into play:
 * 3) All triggers from the minion's death activate in the order they were played, including the minion's Deathrattle, Avenge (if the check is positive - see below), and other secrets and triggered effects
 * 4) Avenge checks whether there are any friendly minions left in play: if there is, it triggers; if there is not, it does not trigger and remains in place
 * 5) Note that if the previous step caused new minions to become lethally damaged, the game will not change them to dead until all current deaths have been resolved, meaning they can still receive buffs such as Avenge at this point, potentially saving them from dying
 * 6) Once all the original minion deaths have been resolved, any new minions deaths resulting from the above death process are now considered, and the process begins again


 * Activation based on other friendly minions
 * When a friendly minion dies, Avenge checks for the presence of another friendly minion to determine whether to activate.


 * Like all death-related effects, Avenge will check for activation at the moment at which the minion's death is resolved - before any Deathrattle or other death-related effects have actually taken place. If there are no living friendly minions on the board at that point, Avenge will remain unactivated, even if a later effect generates one. For example, if a player with Avenge has a lone Sludge Belcher on the board, and the Sludge Belcher is killed, the Avenge will not activate, regardless of order of play. This is because at the point at which the Belcher was removed from the board, there were no friendly minions to buff, and so the Avenge did not become 'queued' to trigger. Although the Sludge Belcher's Deathrattle goes on to produce a Slime, this happens too late to activate the Avenge. This behaviour is confirmed by the case of a lone minion dying with a Redemption and an Avenge in play (in that order): the minion dies, leaving an empty board; the Redemption then activates, summoning a 1/1 (a valid target for Avenge); but Avenge will not trigger, since at the point at which it would have been queued, there were no minions on the board.


 * Avenge will check for activation at the start of each death resolution, until it is activated. This means that when multiple minions die at once, Avenge will take into account the results of Deathrattles and death-related effects activated by the deaths of any previous minions when checking for activation. Therefore, a minion whose death resolves immediately after a Sludge Belcher or Harvest Golem will cause the Avenge to check for activation, find the minion summoned by the other minion's Deathrattle, and queue itself for activation. When Avenge is then activated, it will buff a friendly minion at random. This can cause Avenge to trigger even when all friendly minions on the board are killed by a single effect, provided those minions were played in the right order.


 * For example:
 * A paladin plays Haunted Creeper followed by Micro Machine followed by Avenge. His opponent Flamestrikes, destroying both minions and removing them from the board. The Creeper's death resolves first because it was played first; Avenge checks for activation but finds no minions, and therefore does not queue itself for activation; the Creeper's Deathrattle then activates, summoning two Spectral Spiders. The Micro Machine's death then resolves; Avenge checks for activation and finds the two Spectral Spiders, and therefore queues itself for activation; the Avenge activates, and buffs one of the Spiders, at random.
 * A paladin plays Micro Machine followed by Nerubian Egg followed by Avenge. His opponent Flamestrikes, destroying both minions and removing them from the board. The Micro Machine's death resolves first, since it was summoned first; Avenge checks for activation but finds no minions, and therefore does not queue itself for activation. The Nerubian Egg's death then resolves; Avenge checks for activation but finds no minions, and therefore does not queue itself for activation; the Nerubian Egg's Deathrattle then activates, summoning a Nerubian. Avenge does not trigger since there were no friendly minions on the board at the time either death began resolving.


 * Activation order of Secret and Deathrattle
 * Like all death-related triggers, Avenge may activate before or after the dying minion's Deathrattle, depending on the order of play. This can be significant because Avenge only chooses a target when it activates, not when it first checks for trigger conditions. If the Avenge was put into play before the minion, it will select a random friendly minion and grant it the Avenge buff before any Deathrattle; while if the minion was put into play first, its Deathrattle (if any) will trigger before the Avenge. This allows order of play to affect both targeting and activation.


 * Consider a Sludge Belcher dying while Avenge and Wisp are in play:
 * If Avenge was played before the Belcher, it will choose its target before the Belcher's Deathrattle summons a Slime, so the Wisp is the only choice for the buff.
 * If Avenge was played after the Belcher, the Slime will be summoned first and Avenge will randomly pick between valid targets, including the Slime.


 * Be aware of the counterintuitive difference between this scenario and the previous one concerning trigger conditions: A Sludge Belcher's Slime never qualifies as a friendly minion for the purposes of triggering Avenge when the Sludge Belcher dies alone, but the Slime can be the target of Avenge provided another friendly minion was already on the board to activate it.


 * Simultaneous resolution of damaging Deathrattles
 * In the case of minions such as Abomination or Explosive Sheep, all effects triggered from a death are considered to take place simultaneously before another round of deaths can begin. For example, an Unstable Ghoul is played, followed by an Avenge. The Ghoul is destroyed, and its Deathrattle reduces a Silver Hand Recruit to 0 Health. The Avenge then triggers, granting its buff to the Silver Hand Recruit, and increasing its Health to 2, allowing it to survive.


 * Combinations of Deathrattles
 * One of the most complicated cases is when damaging and summoning Deathrattles are involved in one event. For example: a player plays Sludge Belcher, then Abomination, then Avenge; the opponent then weakens the Belcher, before destroying both minions simultaneously using Flamestrike. The result is a buffed 4/2 Slime: The Sludge Belcher's death resolves first due to the order of play, summoning a 1/2 Slime, but since the board was empty at the time its death resolves, Avenge does not activate; the Abomination's death then resolves, and both the Deathrattle and Avenge are queued, since Avenge sees the Slime on the board. The Deathrattle reduces the Slime to 0 health, but Avenge then buffs the Slime. Since the game does not check for further deaths until after current deaths have completed, the Slime survives as a 4/2.

Avenge and Mad Scientist

 * If a Mad Scientist dies and its Deathrattle puts Avenge into play, the Avenge will not activate from the Mad Scientist's death, since it was not present when the game checked for death-related triggers. However, any minion which dies once the Avenge is in play will activate it, provided there is a friendly minion left on the board.


 * This means that if multiple minions are killed at the same time, the Avenge may activate from the death of any minion which dies after the Mad Scientist - provided there is a friendly minion left on the board to receive the buff. The receiving minion may have survived the attack, or have been generated by a Deathrattle or other death-related effect from one of the dying minions. Note that minion deaths are resolved in the order in which the minions were put into play.


 * As an example, with an Avenge in your deck (and no other secrets), play a Micro Machine, Mad Scientist, Knife Juggler and Chillwind Yeti in that order and have your opponent cast Flamestrike. Simultaneously the Micro Machine, Mad Scientist and Knife Juggler die and are removed from the board. Then one by one, their consequences of death are resolved:


 * 1) The Micro Machine has no consequences of death.
 * 2) The Mad Scientist has one consequence of death - the Mad Scientist's Deathrattle, which puts Avenge into play.
 * 3) The Knife Juggler has one consequence of death - the newly played Avenge, which buffs the only surviving minion, the Chillwind Yeti.


 * If the Mad Scientist were played after the Knife Juggler then the Avenge would not be able to go off, since there would be no later minion's death to activate it.


 * It doesn't need to be an alive minion, either - it can be a minion spawned by a deathrattle if a third minion is resolved later in the simultaneous deaths. If the player instead played a Haunted Creeper, a Mad Scientist and a Knife Juggler, this would happen:


 * 1) The Haunted Creeper has one consequence of death - the Haunted Creeper's Deathrattle, which spawns two Spectral Spiders.
 * 2) The Mad Scientist has one consequence of death - the Mad Scientist's deathrattle, which puts Avenge into play.
 * 3) The Knife Juggler has one consequence of death - the newly played Avenge, which buffs one of the surviving minions at random, in either case a Spectral Spider.


 * In this case, if the Mad Scientist or Haunted Creeper died last, at no point can the Avenge trigger.

Strategy
As stated by Ben Brode prior to the adventure's release, this card has good synergy with Noble Sacrifice, allowing the Defender's death to grant +3/+2 to a friendly minion.

Combinations
Combining Avenge with other secrets like Redemption and Noble Sacrifice can be used to manipulate your opponent.

Noble Sacrifice will tempt the opponent to attack with their low Health minions first, which will either result in them killing your weaker minion, triggering Avenge, buffing your stronger minion forcing your opponent to prioritize killing or they attack with their weak minion, realize it is not Noble Sacrifice, attack with their other minions, killing your bigger minion, and trigger Avenge on your weaker minion whom of which will be easier to kill.

Redemption can be used instead of Avenge if your opponent thinks that your secret is Noble Sacrifice, because when they realize that it is not Noble Sacrifice they will focus on killing your bigger minions, but to their surprise your Redemption will revive your bigger minion, forcing them to attack with their remaining minions, use up the rest of their mana, or wait until their next turn. If they think your remaining secret is Redemption they will focus on killing your weaker minion which to their surprise will trigger Avenge instead. If both Redemption and Avenge are played you can give your big minion some decent staying power.

Commander Rhyssa doubles the effect of all secrets, resulting in Avenge triggering twice on a minion or two different ones.

Trivia

 * The card's flavor text references the.
 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Wrathgate" series, for the card Crusade Commander Entari.

Patch changes

 * Holy spell school added.
 * Added.