Hir'eek, the Bat

Hir'eek, the Bat is a legendary warlock minion card, from the Rastakhan's Rumble set.

Strategy
On his own, Hir'eek can provide up to seven 1/1 minions for the cost of 8, which is often not particularly valuable for its cost and creates a board state highly vulnerable to area of effect attacks (comparable with Onyxia, who is 1 mana more expensive but has 8/8 in stats in addition to swarming the board with 1/1 minions). As a result, Hir'eek is best used in conjunction with cards that buff his stats while he's in the player's hand, such as Soul Infusion, Spirit of the Bat, and Imprisoned Scrap Imp

One of the biggest worries as a Warlock card is to discard Hi'reek. Because of this Soulwarden is essential in any deck that runs any of the classic high value discard cards. If you can get Hi'reek to 3/3 he already becomes worth playing, but due to the strength of hand buffs its completely possible to get him up to 5/5 or higher.

Lore

 * '' (pronounced high-REEK), the Lord of the Midnight Sky, is a bat . He is represented on through a champion of his choosing, a position once held by the deceased High Priestess Jeklik.


 * ''Like the other loa of the, Hir'eek was held in against his will during the time when the  were attempting to resurrect Hakkar the Soulflayer.


 * '' were later guided by the spirit of Hir'eek in, where he turns the player into a shadowy.


 * ''Shortly after the events of, Hir'eek communicated with Vol'jin, betrayed by Garrosh Hellscream, through visions.


 * ''Hir'eek would eventually be corrupted by G'huun and the s, and subsequently slain by an adventurer with the aid of and his poison. His death was mourned by the.


 * ''Hir'eek's corpse could later be seen by adventurers looking to escape the blood trolls.

In Hearthstone lore, Hir'eek serves as the patron loa of Hir'eek's Bats, the warlock team in Rastakhan's Rumble. This association between Hir'eek and the warlock class is unique to Hearthstone.

Trivia

 * Hir'eek went through several iterations during the development of Rastakhan's Rumble, including as a 10-mana 10/10 minion with "Your hero can only take 1 damage at a time" and as a 5-mana 4/7 minion with "On your turn, damage your hero takes refreshes Mana Crystals instead".
 * This card's flavor text is a reference to the  franchise. In the games, Repel was used to avoid random encounters, which was especially useful in caves where random encounters could happen anywhere. Zubat, the bat Pokémon, are notorious for frequently spawning in caves due to their common rarity. Similarly, Hir'eek summons a lot of bats.

Patch changes

 * Added.