- Spell Damage
Your spells deal extra damage.

A Wrath of Air Totem, with purple sparkles to signal its Spell Damage bonus
Spell Damage is an ability which boosts the overall damage of spells by the listed amount. Spell Damage does not increase healing done by spells, and does not increase damage dealt from non-spell sources such as Hero Powers, Deathrattles or Battlecries. Sources of Spell Damage are indicated by purple sparkles around their portaits.
Contents
Notes[]
- Spell Damage increases the damage dealt by any spell, with only a few exceptions:
- Spell Damage increases the cost of minions summoned from
Unexpected Results, which is explicitly stated in the card text.
- Spell Damage has no effect on spells like
Betrayal which cause characters to do damage, since the targeted minion is considered the source of the damage, not the spell.
- In-hand effects like
Cursed! that are spells are not affected by either player's Spell Damage.
- On-draw effects that are spells (such as
Ancient Curse and
Burrowing Mine) are not affected by either player's Spell Damage.
- On-discard effects like
Fist of Jaraxxus do benefit from Spell Damage bonuses.
- Spell Damage boosts the damage dealt by healing spells affected by
Auchenai Soulpriest and
Embrace the Shadow, since they are turned into spells with damaging effects.
- Spell Damage boosts damaging Secrets (such as
Eye for an Eye and
Explosive Trap), since they are spells.
- Spell Damage boosts the damage dealt by spells that deal variable amounts of damage (such as
Blade Flurry and
Shield Slam, whose base damage is determined by some other source). For example, if a player has Spell Damage +2 and
Holy Wrath draws a card that costs 3 mana, Holy Wrath will deal 5 damage to its target.
- Spell Damage has no effect on healing spells nor on damaging effects that are not spells (like Hero Powers, Deathrattles, Battlecries, Fatigue,
Cho'gall's effect, triggered effects and combat damage).
- Spell Damage increases the cost of minions summoned from
- Multiple instances of Spell Damage stack. In particular, Spell Damage granted by enchantments will stack with any existing Spell Damage on the buffed minions.
- Being an additive bonus, Spell Damage is applied before being multiplied by multiplicative bonuses like
Prophet Velen.[1]
- Spell Damage has always the most up-to-date value: its value updates constantly, and not only when Auras are updated.
- For any given spell, Spell Damage boosts either the total damage output or the damage per hit by the given amount, depending on the type of targeting and the way damage is distributed. The general rule is, when numbers printed on the card describe the amount of damage, each point of Spell Damage increases each of those numbers by 1, and the spell acts accordingly. More precisely:
- Spells that deal a certain amount of damage randomly split among all characters with a given characteristic (
Arcane Missiles,
Avenging Wrath,
Timepiece of Horror,
Spreading Madness,
Cinderstorm) have their total damage increased by Spell Damage: the spell will thus shoot an increased number of missiles, but each one will still deal 1 damage.
Arcane Blast's damage in increased by twice the total Spell Damage bonus of its caster.
- All other spells that deal damage to one or more characters have the damage dealt to each target increased by their caster's total Spell Damage bonus. This includes single-target spells (for example, with Spell Damage +2
Fireball will deal 8 damage), area of effect spells (for example, with Spell Damage +1
Swipe will do 5 damage to its target and 2 damage to all other enemies)[2] and spells that damage "multiple targets" (such as
Cleave and
Explosive Shot) or that do a base amount of damage repeated a variable number of times (like
Bouncing Blade and
Greater Arcane Missiles).
Forbidden Flame's damage is increased despite there being no numbers on the card text to indicate it. In particular, at 0 mana, it will do 1 damage.
- Spells that deal a certain amount of damage randomly split among all characters with a given characteristic (
- Sources of Spell Damage are indicated by purple sparkles. This includes, as long as a
Jungle Moonkin is in play, both heroes as well as the Jungle Moonkin itself.
- For additional details, see Damage#Advanced rules.
- Spell Damage dynamically modifies the numbers printed on the text of eligible spell cards in your hand accordingly (for example, with Spell Damage +2 the text of a
Fireball card in your hand will read "Deal *8* damage.").
Strategy[]

Mousing over a friendly source of Spell Damage will highlight any cards affected by Spell Damage, indicated by purple sparkles
Spell Damage is a valuable quality for classes which use damaging spells. The mage, rogue and shaman classes are good examples, but every class has damaging spells and can therefore benefit from it. Spell Damage is especially important to control decks such as Freeze Mage and Miracle Rogue, as well as spell-related aggro decks such as Aggro Shaman.
Like most card text effects, Spell Damage takes effect as soon as the related minion comes into play. This makes order of play very important, and allows you to quickly unload a flurry of buffed attacks in one turn, if you have the mana to spare. This is particularly possible with low mana cost minions such as Kobold Geomancer. Even if your opponent removes your minion the next turn, you will still have gotten some use from them.
Note that while many varieties of Spell Damage minion exist, almost all of them offer the same bonus: Spell Damage +1. This means the difference between a Dalaran Mage and an
Archmage (and the justification for the extra mana cost) lies only in Attack and Health values, not in their actual ability to boost spell damage. This can make low-cost Spell Damage minions an appealing choice, allowing you to rapidly and cheaply put them into play, ideally in immediate combination with some damaging spells.
Players will generally want to protect their Spell Damage minions, and may not wish to summon them until they have a sturdy Taunt in place, although this does not of course protect them from spells and other effects. Conversely, attacking players will often want to dispose of Spell Damage minions as quickly as possible, before their owner can put their bonus damage to good use.
This can make Spell Damage minions good lures for removal, as well as neutralisation through Silences and transform effects. Spell Damage minions often function as soft taunts, drawing the priority fire of your opponent while other targets are ignored. In less than ideal circumstances, this is as good a use of a Spell Damage minion as any, especially if you have other Spell Damage minions on the way, have no spells in your hand, or have already used most of those in your deck.
Trivia[]
- Sources of Spell Damage are usually minions, but
Jungle Moonkin makes both heroes sources of Spell Damage - although they depend on the minion's ongoing effect to retain this ability.
- The developers have tried having cards that decreased the opponent's Spell Damage, but found that it was too confusing in practice.[3]
- Most minions with Spell Damage themselves have explanatory tooltips that state "Your spell cards deal 1 extra damage". This is true even for those with Spell Damage +2.
Malygos correctly states "Your spell cards deal 5 extra damage."
- Other cards which grant or mention Spell Damage, such as
Ancient Mage and
Velen's Chosen, simply say "Your spells deal extra damage" instead.
Cards with Spell Damage[]
- For Wild format listings, see Spell Damage/Wild format
Collectible[]
Uncollectible[]
Sources of Spell Damage[]
- For Wild format listings, see Spell Damage/Wild format
Spell Damage-generating cards[]
This section lists cards which generate Spell Damage cards.
Spell Damage-granting cards[]
This section lists cards which grant the Spell Damage ability to other characters or to itself.
Achievements[]
Name | Requirements | Rewards |
---|---|---|
D-A-M-A-G-E (1/5) | Play 10 minions with Spell Damage. | 10 ![]() |
D-A-M-A-G-E (2/5) | Play 30 minions with Spell Damage. | 10 ![]() |
D-A-M-A-G-E (3/5) | Play 100 minions with Spell Damage. | 10 ![]() |
D-A-M-A-G-E (4/5) | Play 300 minions with Spell Damage. | 10 ![]() |
D-A-M-A-G-E (5/5) | Play 1000 minions with Spell Damage. | 20 ![]() |
Patch changes[]
- Unknown patch: Mousing over a source of Spell Damage will no longer highlight the cards in the player's hand that benefit from Spell Damage; previously, it did.This content needs an update.A newer Hearthstone patch, 23.6.0.142295, has been released. This content/statement needs revision to be up to date with this patch.Latest revision: 1.0.0.0
Patch 3.0.0.9786 (2015-08-18): The first Spell Damage synergy is added, with
Master of Ceremonies, as well as the first card to multiply Spell Damage:
Arcane Blast.
- Patch 1.0.0.3890 (2013-10-02): “Spell Power +1” has been renamed “Spell Damage +1”.