Summon

For information on summoning minions, see Minion#Summoning.

Summon is an ability which summons one or more minions.

Distinct from regular summoning, a minion generated by the summon ability does not consume or come from an existing card, is usually uncollectible, and does not incur its mana cost. The ability is found on hero powers, spells and minions, and is often triggered by a Battlecry or Deathrattle. Transform effects function similarly to summon effects in that they bring new minions into play, but do so by replacing an existing minion with another, and therefore do not trigger summoning-related effects.

Notes

• Minions summoned by a summon effect are not played directly from the hand, and therefore will not trigger Battlecries or Overload. However, they will work with triggered effects which respond to the summoning of minions.

• All minions are considered to be "summoned". However, only minions played directly from the hand are considered to have been "played". Card text which states "plays a minion" therefore refers only to the direct playing of a minion from the hand, while "summons a minion" can refer to a minion being summoned by any means. For example, using Reinforce to summon a Silver Hand Recruit will not trigger Mirror Entity, but will trigger Sword of Justice.

• Unlike when directly summoning minions, the placement of minions summoned by summon effects is not controlled by the player. As a rule, summon effects tend to place minions to the right. In the case of minion summon effects such as Violet Teacher's triggered effect, the minion is placed immediately to the right of the summoning minion; while for all other sources of summon effects, including Hero Powers such as Totemic Call and spells such as Animal Companion, the minion is placed at the far right of the battlefield.
  • One notable exception: Minions that summon multiple minions at once frequently place the minions symmetrically on both sides. For example, summoning Onyxia will evenly distribute Whelps to Onyxia's left and right. Dr. Boom will similarly attempt to place a Boom Bot to each side of himself.

• Cards with effects that summon random minions can summon even class-inappropriate ones.

Cards with summon

Collectible

For Wild format listings, see Summon/Wild format

Uncollectible

For Wild format listings, see Summon/Wild format

Related cards

For Wild format listings, see Summon/Wild format

These cards have effects related to the summoning of minions in general, or the playing of minions from the hand specifically.

Patch changes

• Alpha patch (unknown date, pre-May 2013): "Summon" in card text is no longer capitalised.