Angry Chicken

Angry Chicken is a rare neutral minion card, inducted into the Legacy set, formerly from the Classic set.

Previous availability

 * Regular Angry Chicken could also be obtained as a first-time reward for first time reaching Silver 10 and Gold 10 in Ranked mode from April 1, 2020 to March 25, 2021 (or as a reward of Climbing the Ranks (2/10) and (4/10) achievements).

Strategy
In order to benefit from its Enrage effect, the player must first find a way to raise the total health of this minion. Without this, the Angry Chicken is worse than most other 1 mana minions. For this reason, this minion is best played in a deck filled with minion improvements, particularly health-boosters.

In addition to attacking any 1-attack minions the enemy has in play (they'll probably avoid attacking your Health-buffed chicken if they're smart, unless they can finish it off with a non-minion that turn) to trigger the chicken for followup attacks, 1-damage effects (since fellow 1-attack minions can't self-attack, and enemies will probably avoid it) can be useful here like for triggering the enrage, such as the mage hero power Fireblast or Cruel Taskmaster who will give an extra damage bonus on top of the chicken's inherent one.

Alternatively, Deathstalker Rexxar can attach Angry Chicken's Enrage to a much larger minion, making it exponentially more threatening.

Once its health is increased and the enrage effect triggered, this minion combos well with other effects such as Taunt for strong clearing power, or Windfury for massive damage.

In the case of the +5 attack being neutralized by a card like Humility being played afterward (sets attack to 1) it is possible to regain the bonus by healing the chicken back to full health and having them injured a second time. As the most recent enchantment takes priority, the 2nd Enraged will override Humility.

The Angry Chicken is generally considered a poor choice for most decks. However, in combination with the right effects, it can be extremely powerful. For example, commentator TotalBiscuit, in his "Lord of the Arena" video series (Episode 49, at 6:22), ended up with an Angry Chicken with 8 Attack after buffing it with Mark of the Wild and Enraging it with a Mad Bomber.

Trivia

 * The artwork for this card (and for Chicken) comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Crafting: Icecrown" series, for the card Gnomish Poultryizer.
 * Angry Chicken was originally simply a 1/1 with no special ability, intended to be "kind of a joke", and "something for everyone to latch on to as "the worst card"". The Enrage was suggested by Quality Assurance "homie" Jeff Manners.
 * The Enrage effect might be a reference to the  franchise, where Cucco are completely harmless until you beat them several times, which then causes them to become invulnerable and attack you relentlessly until you leave the area or die.
 * This card inspired the Hearthstone podcast The Angry Chicken. Following the podcast's success, Ben Brode planned to alter the art for the card in order to provide some "truly angry chicken art" in tribute to the podcast, but changed his mind after deciding a change to established art would be too confusing for players, choosing to instead commission some "especially angry" art for the Gnomish Experimenter's Chicken.
 * Interestingly in light of the above, the full art of the Angry Chicken appears to be displaying the end result of the Gnomish Experimenter causing the player to draw a minion card. It seems clear the chicken has been transformed into a chicken from some kind of humanoid, given the now-empty suit of armor that seems to have fallen to pieces around it, meaning that the art would be ideal for the Experimenter's Chicken, and the Experimenter's Chicken ideal for the Angry Chicken.

Patch changes

 * Moved from Classic to Legacy set.
 * Keyword Enrage removed.