Repentance

Repentance

Regular

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Gold

Set:	EXPERT1
Type:	Spell
Spell school:	Holy
Class:	Paladin
Rarity:	Common
Cost:	1
Abilities:	Secret
Tags:	Summoning-related, Triggered effect
Artist:	Gonzalo Ordonez

Secret: After your opponent plays a minion, reduce its Health to 1.

Repentance often comes in the moment before obliteration. Curious.

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Repentance is a common paladin spell card, inducted into the Legacy set, formerly from the Classic set.

Other versions

Classic

How to get

Repentance can be obtained through Classic card packs, or through crafting.

Card	Crafting cost	Disenchanting
Repentance	40	5
Golden Repentance	400	50

Notes

• Like the other Secrets that trigger when your opponent plays a minion from their hand (Mirror Entity, Snipe, Sacred Trial), Repentance triggers in the After Play Phase following the Battlecry Phase. This means that all effects and death processing related to the minion's Battlecry resolve before the game queues and resolves Secrets such as Repentance. For example, if your opponent plays Twilight Drake into your Repentance, it will end with 1 Health.
  • Repentance, Sacred Trial, Mirror Entity, Snipe and Potion of Polymorph all trigger in order of play.
  • Repentance does not trigger if Sacred Trial set the minion pending destroy before it. (Before Patch 7.1, it would triggere even though the minion will die anyway.)
  • Repentance still triggers if Snipe mortally wounds the minion before it. (This is probably a bug, as it saves the enemy minion from dying.)
  • Repentance still triggers if the minion is already at 1 Health, including if it is at 1 Health because it got transformed first by Potion of Polymorph.

Strategy

This Secret only triggers when the opponent plays a minion directly from their hand. Summoning minions by other means (such as Totemic Call or Animal Companion) will not trigger Repentance. Like all Secrets, Repentance takes effect after any Battlecry from the triggering minion, so e.g. Ancient of War is going to have 1 Health, regardless of the option chosen.

This Secret used to work against an enemy who played Lord Jaraxxus, setting the Health of their Hero to 1 after the Battlecry was resolved. However, this interaction was removed in Patch 9.2.0.21517, and Lord Jaraxxus will no longer trigger Repentance.

This Secret is especially useful against opponents with high drop decks (6+mana) or high Health minions, and is best used toward the mid-late game, to combat against people that would bring heavy hitting minions (i.e. Molten Giant, Sea Giant, Core Hound etc.). This card is not as useful against those who play synergized creatures, those who have a lot of spawning tokens, or combo-based classes (rogue, paladin, shaman, warlock).

Lore

Repentance is a paladin ability from World of Warcraft that places the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min (8 seconds against players). However, any damage taken by the target will awaken them. It is an extremely useful crowd control tool, allowing the paladin to temporarily put a secondary target out of play while they focus on another. It can also be used as an interrupt, or to buy the paladin time to self-heal.

Trivia

• The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Icecrown" series, for the card Conqueror Nairi.

Gallery

Repentance, full art

Patch changes

• Year of the Gryphon rotation (2021-03-30): Moved from Classic to Legacy set.
• Patch 20.0.0.77662 (2021-03-25): Now has Holy spell school (previously: no spell school).
• Patch 4.2.0.12051 (2016-03-14): Now reads "After your opponent" instead of "When your opponent".