Casts When Drawn

Casts When Drawn is an ability on spells which activates when the spell is drawn from the deck, causing the spell to be cast instantly, without spending any Mana. After it resolves, the player draws another card to replace the cast spell in their hand so that they do not miss their draw.

Casts When Drawn is featured exclusively on spells that are shuffled into a player's deck via other cards. Some cards with Casts When Drawn are shuffled into the opponent's deck, with negative effects once drawn; other cards are shuffled into the player's own deck, with positive effects for the player.

Casts When Drawn is distinguished from general draw-related triggered effects, which activate when any card is drawn.

Notes

• Casts When Drawn is only activated through regular card draw. It is not triggered if the card is chosen during the mulligan, put directly into the player's hand or returned to the hand.
  • Casts When Drawn is not triggered when the card is copied or generated in the hand. For example, drawing a Nerubian Ambush! with a Chromaggus on the board will generate a copy in the player's hand; the original Nerubian Ambush! will cast itself automatically, but the copy will not be cast. However, in some cases copied cards have been known to cast themselves automatically due to bugs.
• Casts When Drawn is only activated through successful card draw. Overdrawing a Casts When Drawn card will not activate its on-draw effect.
• Casts When Drawn is not activated if the card is removed from play, such as through being removed from the deck.
• Casts When Drawn effects reveal the card to both players, at the moment when the effect takes place. The card is then added to the player's hand (unless the on-draw effect has itself destroyed the card) and cast.
• If the card drawn to replace a Casts When Drawn card is another Casts When Drawn card, the second card will still cast itself. This can potentially create a lengthy chain of on-draw effects.
• Casts When Drawn cards can be seen to occupy a space in the player's hand prior to their activation, suggesting that their effects are in fact a special type of in-hand effect.
• "Casts When Drawn" is unique to spells. Other on-draw effects, like that of Flame Leviathan, do not use this keyword since the cards are not "cast" when drawn.

Cards

For Wild format listings, see Casts When Drawn/Wild format

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Sources of Casts When Drawn

For Wild format listings, see Casts When Drawn/Wild format

Casts When Drawn-generating cards

This section lists cards which generate Casts When Drawn spells.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Strategy

• Due to the nature of card draw, Casts When Drawn cards are difficult to predict or prevent. This can make it hard to plan around their useful effects, or give the player a chance to evade their drawbacks.
• There are a few ways players can avoid activating enemy on-draw effects that have been shuffled into their decks. Tracking is particularly useful for this, neutralizing any on-draw effects displayed. However, the most common way is to intentionally maintain a full hand, causing any further cards to be overdrawn. While drastic, this can be an effective strategy and in the right circumstances a desirable trade off, such as if facing lethal from a Burrowing Mine while the opponent's hand and board are empty. This is most viable for control decks, and is especially relevant for Freeze Mages trying to prevent a Burrowing Mine from circumventing their Ice Block. More aggressively, Fel Reaver can be intentionally employed to mill the player's own deck.

Trivia

• Before Patch 12.2.0.26996 added the Casts When Drawn keyword, cards with this ability featured text with the same format: "<Spell effect>. Draw a card. Cast this when drawn."

Patch changes

• Patch 20.0.0.77662 (2021-03-25): Fixed a bug where Shenanigans would not trigger if the opponent’s first card drawn was a “Casts When Drawn” card.
• Patch 12.2.0.26996 (2018-10-02): Added.