Destroy

Destroying a minion or weapon removes it from play. Only minions currently on the battlefield and weapons that are currently equipped can be destroyed. Discarding a card removes it directly from the player's hand and from the game, but does not destroy it. The destruction of a minion is often referred to as 'killing' or 'dying'. Destroying the enemy hero will conclude the match. The exceptions to this are Lord Jaraxxus and Majordomo Executus.

Destroy effects are effects which directly destroy a minion, hero, weapon or Secret, removing it from play regardless of its stats and enchantments, and without dealing damage to it.

Destruction
Cards can be destroyed in several ways. Regardless of the method used, the results are the same.


 * Minions and heroes can be destroyed by reducing their Health to 0
 * Weapons can be destroyed by reducing their Durability to 0, or by equipping another weapon
 * Cards of any type can be destroyed using appropriate destroy effects
 * Attempting to return a minion to the controlling player's hand when the player already has 10 cards in their hand will destroy that minion
 * Secrets can be destroyed through attempting to gain a second copy of a specific Secret - currently only possible using Kezan Mystic

Consequences

 * When a card is destroyed, it is immediately removed from play, and any Deathrattles will be activated. Other minions' triggered effects may also be activated (e.g., Flesheating Ghoul), as well as Secrets (e.g., Redemption). For a list of related triggered effects, see Triggered effect.


 * Some spells provide special effects if the target minion is killed, namely Mortal Coil and Bane of Doom.

Cards that destroy specific targets
Destroy effects can be categorized by which types of targets they destroy.

Related cards
The below cards have synergy with minion death.

Trivia

 * Minion death is a major card feature for the adventure Curse of Naxxramas, with most of the adventure's cards involving Deathrattles or minion death in some way.