Bane of Doom

Bane of Doom

Set:	Classic
Type:	Spell
Class:	Warlock
Rarity:	Epic
Cost:	5
Abilities:	Deal damage, Summon
Tags:	Death-related, Demon-generating, Health-related, Random, Targeted
Artist:	Raymond Swanland

Deal 2 damage to a character. If that kills it, summon a random Demon.

My advice to you is to avoid Doom, if possible.

See this card on Hearthpwn

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Bane of Doom is an epic warlock spell card, from the Classic set.

How to get

Bane of Doom can be obtained through Classic card packs, through crafting, or as an Arena reward. Golden Bane of Doom can also be obtained through the Highest Rank Bonus chest at the end of each Ranked season.

Card	Crafting cost	Disenchanting
Bane of Doom	400	100
Golden Bane of Doom	1600	400

Notes

• This spell has two steps:
  • First it deals damage, queuing and resolving all on-damage triggers;
  • Then, if its condition is satisfied, it summons a random demon, queuing and resolving triggers. Notice that as of Patch 5.0.0.12574 (WotOG patch), minions that have been set pending destroy, such as by Acidmaw, are considered to be dying, and the condition will thus be satisfied.

• When Bane of Doom summons a demon, it chooses randomly from among all collectible Demons.

• Unlike Sense Demons, the Demon is not drawn from your deck, and the contents of your deck will not affect this spell.

• Battlecry effects are only activated when a minion is played from the hand, and will not be activated through Bane of Doom. This is usually good since demons tend to have battlecries with negative effects, for example Flame Imp, Doomguard or Pit Lord.

• If a hero is killed by Bane of Doom, a Demon will be summoned just as when a minion is killed. This is, of course, irrelevant to the outcome of the match.

• As with all golden card effects, if either the Bane of Doom or the minion killed is golden, the demon summoned will also be golden.

• If Bane of Doom reduces its target to 0 Health, the target is also destroyed. This means that if the target is a friendly Demon and Mal'Ganis is summoned, Mal'Ganis' +2 Health aura will not save the target and it will die anyway. A hypothesis for this interaction existing is because in the game's alpha, Blood Imp gave +1 Health to friendly minions, which would cause the spell's target to 'un-die', and testers considered this a bug and hardcoded a fix specifically for Bane of Doom. This used to be why Bane of Doom instantly ended multi-hero adventures, but that bug has since been fixed.

Strategy

Bane of Doom should only be played when it kills the target. The alternative, dealing only two damage without summoning a Demon, is a very weak play given the five mana cost.

The spell can be very strong or quite weak depending on the Demon it summons, as demons have a huge variance in strength. A weak or harmful demon like Blood Imp, Unlicensed Apothecary, or Howlfiend can incur a huge tempo loss or put you at a disadvantage, while a powerful demon like Doomguard, Despicable Dreadlord, or Illidan Stormrage can give you a strong lead. Of course, if the player is about to lose the game, using Bane of Doom may be the only option, since it has the potential to summon a Demon that can disrupt the opponent's attack, such as Felguard.

Bane of Doom can be used with Spell Damage minions (like Bloodmage Thalnos) to increase the amount of targets it can kill, thereby increasing the potential to activate its demon-summoning effect.

Possible minions

For Wild format listings, see Demon#Collectible

This table lists all collectible Demons in Standard format, representing the full range of possible summons from Bane of Doom. As of Whispers of the Old Gods there are 17 collectible Demons, giving this card a 5.88% chance of summoning any given Demon.

Name / Desc	Rarity	Type	Subtype	Class	Cost	Atk	HP	Description
Azari, the Devourer	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	10	10	10	Battlecry: Destroy your opponent's deck.
Felhunter	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	2	2	2
Felhunter	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	3	3	3
Felhunter	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	4	4	4
Felhunter	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	5	5	5
Felhunter	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	6	6	6
Imp	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	1	1	1
Imp	None	Minion	Demon	Any	1	1	1
Nether Imp	None	Minion	Demon	Warlock	2	3	2
Infernal	Common	Minion	Demon	Warlock	6	6	6
Worthless Imp	Common	Minion	Demon	Warlock	1	1	1	You are out of demons! At least there are always imps...
Showing all 11 cards

History

Prior to Patch 2.4.0.8311, Bane of Doom could summon only Blood Imp, Voidwalker, Flame Imp, Dread Infernal, Succubus or Felguard. No other Demons would be summoned.

This set the card apart from a number of other "random minion" cards such as Webspinner and Piloted Shredder, which (as Bane of Doom does now) pick from among all collectible cards of the stated type. This discrepancy was noted by the developers, especially in response to player requests following the release of Goblins vs Gnomes, but the card was only changed with the patch accompanying the release of Blackrock Mountain.

One reason for the original design may have been the power of Demons such as Lord Jaraxxus and Mal'Ganis, which could have resulted in Bane of Doom being too powerful. The restricted range of minions also limited the amount of RNG involved, decreasing the potential to swing matches based on which minion was summoned. It also gave developers more "design space" by allowing them to add more Demons to the game without worrying about their potentially unbalancing effect if summoned by Bane of Doom.

Following 4 months of requests from players, with Patch 2.4.0.8311 the spell was changed to be able to summon any collectible Demon. The change was highly unusual, given the developers' stance on not buffing cards, since it was considered to make the spell far more powerful, and led to a significant rise in its popularity. The developers categorised the change as a 'bug fix' rather than a card change, later explaining their motivation for the change as "when it didn't do what it said it did, you couldn't trust any other cards with the same text to do what they say. That's it." Nevertheless it currently stands as the only card in the finished game to have received a favourable change, aside from the minion type additions of Patch 2.0.0.7234.

Lore

This spell's first incarnation was as 'Doom' in Warcraft III, where it was the ultimate ability of the pit lord neutral hero. It would curse a target to take damage and when it died it would summon a doomguard. It was later reinvented in World of Warcraft as the infamous warlock spell 'Curse of Doom', later renamed 'Bane of Doom'. It applied a damage over time effect to a character, and each time it dealt damage had a chance to summon a Demon Guardian. While Cataclysm saw the spell deal damage every fifteen seconds, with a chance to summon an Ebon Imp who would automatically assist the warlock, the original spell had a duration of 60 seconds and dealt damage only once, at the completion of the effect, with a chance to summon a Doomguard. Unlike the Ebon Imp, the summoned Doomguard was not under the warlock's control, and would immediately attack the warlock upon spawning. The Doomguard was quite capable of killing the warlock and his allies, and had to be enslaved via the warlock's Enslave Demon spell in order to control him, although he could resist enslavement, or break free later on and begin attacking the warlock again. Prior to Patch 2.4.0.8311, this was somewhat ironic, since Doomguard was not one of the demons that could be summoned by the Hearthstone incarnation of Bane of Doom.

Trivia

• The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Scourgewar" series, for the card Detonate Soul.

Gallery

Bane of Doom, full art

Patch changes

• Patch 2.4.0.8311 (2015-03-31): can now summon any collectible demons. Doom . . . DOOM! [Previously limited to Blood Imp, Voidwalker, Flame Imp, Dread Infernal, Succubus and Felguard]