Set: | |
---|---|
Type: | Weapon |
Class: | ![]() |
Rarity: | Free |
Cost: | 5 ![]() |
Attack: | 5 ![]() |
Durability: | 2 ![]() |
Artist: | Stefan Kopinski |
No… actually you should fear the Reaper.
COLLECTIBLE
Arcanite Reaper is a warrior weapon card, inducted into the Legacy set, formerly from the Basic set.
Contents
Other versions[]
How to get[]
Regular and golden Arcanite Reaper are uncraftable and cannot be crafted or disenchanted.
Type | Source | Premium | Q. |
---|---|---|---|
New player | Complete the Ranked's New player experience system | Regular | 2 |
New player | Complete the Ranked's New player experience system | Golden | 2 |
Previous availability[]
Prior Year of the Gryphon's rotation on March 30, 2021:
- Two copies of Arcanite Reaper were a reward for raising a warrior to level 10.
- Two Golden copies of Arcanite Reaper were a reward for raising a warrior to levels 51 and 52.
Strategy[]
Arcanite Reaper is a strong mid-game card, useful to either take out large enemy minions or simply swing at the hero.
Arcanite Reaper is often used in aggressive warrior decks because it deals 10 damage for 5 mana, half the cost of the mage's Pyroblast, although it cannot ignore Taunt. By immediately attacking with the Arcanite Reaper, followed the next turn with a second attack improved by
Heroic Strike and the summoning of
Leeroy Jenkins, a warrior can deal 20 damage in 2 turns, which is often enough to finish off the opponent when running this type of deck.
Lore[]
Arcanite Reaper was a craftable weapon in the original World of Warcraft and very popular for orc warriors due to their racial axe bonus. It's now an heirloom and also used for transmog models.

- The weapon remains something of an endearing symbol for veteran warriors since, due to weapon mechanics at the time, the axe's incredible attack speed made attacks such as Mortal Strike incredibly powerful. This led to the warrior class becoming, at level 60, much more adept at PvP. This is something that many warriors had been hoping for since release and the "awesome changes" in the beta and reversed the feeling by many that warriors had been left at the bottom of the PvP food chain. Soon after the Arcanite Reaper's popularization, many servers' low warrior-population reportedly surged. Before Windfury was nerfed and two handed weapon mechanics rebalanced, shamans were occasionally able to "one-shot" equal level players with inferior gear by utilizing the Arcanite Reaper and Windfury Weapon proc.
- Arcanite Reaper gained additional fame from the machinima movie, "Zinwrath: The Movie", where the famous saying "ARCANITE REAPER HOOOOOOOOOOO" originated, and gained further recognition from the machinima movie "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks".
- Also the Arcanite Reaper is the favored weapon by the warlock minion
Felguard.
Trivia[]
- The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Heroes of Azeroth" series, for the card Arcanite Reaper.
- The flavor text is a pun on the 1976 rock song, "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult.
Gallery[]
![]() Arcanite Reaper, full art |
![]() An Arcanite Reaper in World of Warcraft |
Patch changes[]
Year of the Gryphon rotation (2021-03-30): Moved from Basic to Legacy set.
Patch 8.0.0.18336 (2017-04-04): Now has Free rarity (previously: Common).
- Unknown alpha patch: Now costs 5 mana (Down from 6). Now has 5 Attack (Down from 6).[1]