Spell Damage
Your spells deal extra damage.

Spell Damage is an ability which boosts the overall damage of spells by the listed amount.

Sources of Spell Damage are indicated by purple sparkles around their portaits.

Notes

• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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

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

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Uncollectible

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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. Cargo Query Error: Error: Table Card not found.

Spell Damage-granting cards

This section lists cards which grant the Spell Damage ability to other characters or to itself. Cargo Query Error: Error: Table Card not found.

Related cards

For Wild format listings, see Spell Damage/Wild format

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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

• 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 (Closed beta, 2013-10-02): "Spell Power" has been renamed "Spell Damage".

References

Cards By type Hero card Location Minion (Permanent) Spell Weapon By class Death Knight Demon Hunter Druid Hunter Mage Paladin Priest Rogue Shaman Warlock Warrior Neutral Multi-class By minion type All Beast Demon Dragon Elemental Mech Murloc Naga Pirate Quilboar Totem Undead General By spell school Arcane Fel Fire Frost Holy Nature Shadow General By rune Blood Frost Unholy By rarity Free Common Rare Epic Legendary Mechanics Evergreen keywords Battlecry Casts When Drawn Charge Choose One Combo Deathrattle Discover Divine Shield Dormant Freeze Immune Lifesteal Mega-Windfury Outcast Overheal Overload Passive Poisonous Reborn Rush Secret Silence Spell Damage Start of Game Stealth Summoned When Drawn Taunt Tradeable Windfury Card set keywords Adapt Colossal Corrupt (Corrupted) Dredge Echo Finale Forge Frenzy Honorable Kill Infuse (Infused) Inspire Invoke Jade Golem Lackey Magnetic Manathirst Overkill Quest Questline Recruit Sidequest Spare Part Spellburst Titan Twinspell Non-constructed Allied Auto-Attack Auto-cast Avenge Once per Turn Revive Shrine Spellcraft Start of Combat Venomous Classification Adventurer Basic Hero Power Basic Totem Cat Classic Basic Totem Concoction Galakrond Imp Libram Poison Relic SI:7 Spy Gizmo Treant Upgraded Hero Power Watch Post Whelp Other mechanics Can't attack Cast spell Change Cost to Health Copy Corpse (Spend/Gain) Deal damage Destroy Discard Draw cards Elusive Enrage Equip Force attack Forgetful Gain Armor Gain Mana Generate Increment attribute Joust Modify cost Multiply attribute Permanent Playerbound Put into battlefield Put into hand Put on deck Recurring Refresh Mana Remove from game Replace Restore Health Return to hand Set attribute Shuffle into deck Spend mana Steal Summon Take control Transform (Transform in hand, Transform when drawn) Unlimited attacks Upgradable Effect types By range Area of effect Hero zone Positional Random Resurrection By condition Deckbuilding Highlander In-deck In-hand One-time On-discard On-draw Ongoing Triggered Card sets (Expansions / Adventures / Mini-sets) Standard Path of Arthas Core TITANS Festival of Legends (Audiopocalypse) March of the Lich King (Return to Naxxramas) Murder at Castle Nathria (Maw and Disorder) Voyage to the Sunken City (Throne of the Tides) Wild Caverns of Time Fractured in Alterac Valley (Onyxia's Lair) United in Stormwind (Deadmines) Forged in the Barrens (Wailing Caverns) Madness at the Darkmoon Faire (Darkmoon Races) Scholomance Academy Demon Hunter Initiate Ashes of Outland Galakrond's Awakening Descent of Dragons Saviors of Uldum Rise of Shadows Rastakhan's Rumble The Boomsday Project The Witchwood Kobolds & Catacombs Knights of the Frozen Throne Journey to Un'Goro Mean Streets of Gadgetzan One Night in Karazhan Whispers of the Old Gods The League of Explorers The Grand Tournament Blackrock Mountain Goblins vs Gnomes Curse of Naxxramas Legacy Classic Classic Removed Promotion Reward Basic Classic Hall of Fame Wild Event