Elusive

An Elusive minion

"Elusive" is an unofficial term used to refer to minions that cannot be targeted by spells or Hero Powers.

While no official keyword is used to denote the ability, precisely the same text is found on several cards: Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers.

Notes

• Elusive minions cannot be targeted by spells or Hero Powers from either player, such as Kill Command or Lesser Heal.
• Elusive minions can be targeted by Battlecries and minion Combo effects, such as Temple Enforcer or SI:7 Agent.
• Elusive minions can be affected by area of effect and randomly targeted effects, such as Lightning Storm or Arcane Missiles.
• Elusive minions can be targeted by both minion and hero attacks, even if the attack involves using a spell (such as Heroic Strike or Blessing of Kings) or Hero Power (such as Dagger Mastery or Shapeshift).

Keyword

While many consistent abilities such as Taunt, Stealth and Divine Shield are denoted by a specific keyword, the "elusive" ability is not. This is due to the developers' desire to balance the pros and cons of keyword use; while keywords make it easier in cases where they are frequently encountered, when such examples are rare, keywords can actually serve to make understanding cards harder, requiring players to mouse over cards to examine their abilities. Elusive is particularly tricky because it has more than one effect, protecting the minion from both spells and Hero Powers, but not Battlecries or attacks.

Ben Brode has stated that the elusive ability was "right on the razor's edge" regarding whether or not to create a keyword for it. Yong Woo has also stated that it is possible in the future that a keyword will be added for the "elusive" ability - should there come to be a sufficient number of minions with that behaviour in the game. The team have considered names including "Shroud", "Untargetable" and "Ethereal".

For more information on why some abilities have keywords and others do not, see Abilities#Keyword creation.

Strategy

Elusive is generally considered a valuable ability, which substantially increases the survivability of a minion. As a result, elusive minions are usually mana-inefficient for their stats and other effects.

Elusive prevents the opponent from removing or affecting the minion using spells or Hero Powers. The opponent is forced to tackle them using combat, or untargeted effects. This can prevent the opponent from being able to counter the minion, either forcing them into disadvantageous trades, or leaving them powerless to stop your attacks. It can also catch them by surprise, rendering otherwise effective strategies ineffective.

Elusive minions are therefore most effective against spell-heavy decks and those which rely on targeted Hero Power usage (primarily mage). Decks such as Zoo which rely on filling the board with minions and contain few spells, are minimally impacted by elusive minions, and these are generally less than optimal choices against such decks.

While elusive is mostly advantageous to the controlling player, by preventing the player from buffing or otherwise targeting the minion it can end up a hindrance. This is most significant for decks which focus on useful spell buffs, such as Blessing of Kings and Mark of Nature, and those with friendly Hero Power usage (almost exclusively priest), preventing elusive minions from being granted useful effects, or being healed using Lesser Heal. However, note that Battlecries can still be targeted on the elusive minion.

Cards

Name / Desc	Rarity	Type	Subtype	Class	Cost	Atk	HP	Description
Laughing Sister	None	Minion	General	Any	3	3	5	Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers.
Air Elemental	Common	Minion	Elemental	Shaman	1	2	1	Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. Makes a mean puff pastry.
Bearshark	Common	Minion	Beast	Hunter	3	4	3	Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. "Candygram."
Faerie Dragon	Common	Minion	Dragon	Any	2	3	2	Can't be targeted by Spells or Hero Powers. Adorable. Immune to Magic. Doesn't pee on the rug. The perfect pet!
Soggoth the Slitherer	Legendary	Minion	General	Any	9	5	9	Taunt Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. Don't tell Soggoth, but in the future he gets totally owned by the Master's Glaive and his skull becomes a tourist attraction.
Tyrantus	Legendary	Minion	Beast	Druid	10	12	12	Can't be targeted by Spells or Hero Powers. Millennia of evolutionary pressures turned his species into the Faerie Dragons we know today.
Showing all 6 cards

Wild format

 This section contains information exclusive to Wild format.

Name / Desc	Rarity	Type	Subtype	Class	Cost	Atk	HP	Description
Spectral Knight	Common	Minion	General	Any	5	4	6	Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. What do Faerie Dragons and Spectral Knights have in common? They both love pasta!
Arcane Nullifier X-21	Rare	Minion	Mech	Any	4	2	5	Taunt Can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. There was some hard talk between gnome magi and engineers about inventing this mech.
Wee Spellstopper	Epic	Minion	General	Mage	4	2	5	Adjacent minions can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. Bane of spellcasters and spelling bees everywhere.
Showing all 3 cards

Trivia

• The removed card Grounding Totem had the text, "Your other minions can't be targeted by enemy spells or Hero Powers." This would have made it by far the most powerful Elusive card in the game, with its ongoing effect capable of granting the effect to a whole board of minions. Notably the text appears to either be in error (specifying only enemy spells and Hero Powers), or represent an earlier version of the ability.

References

	Cards
By type	Hero card Minion Spell Weapon
By class	Druid Hunter Mage Paladin Priest Rogue Shaman Warlock Warrior
By minion type	Beast Demon Dragon Elemental Mech Murloc Pirate Totem General
By ability	Adapt Auto-Attack Auto-cast Battlecry Cast spell Charge Choose One Combo Copy Deal damage Deathrattle Destroy Discard Discover Divine Shield Draw cards Elusive Enrage Equip Forgetful Freeze Gain Armor Generate Immune Inspire Joust Lifesteal Mega-Windfury Modify cost Overload Permanent Poisonous Put into battlefield Put into hand Quest Refresh Mana Remove from deck Replace Restore Health Return to hand Secret Shuffle into deck Silence Spell Damage Spend mana Stealth Summon Taunt Take control Transform Unlimited attacks Windfury
By effect type	Area of effect In-deck effect In-hand effect On-draw effect On-discard effect Ongoing effect Positional effect Random effect Triggered effect
By card set	Basic Classic Whispers of the Old Gods One Night in Karazhan Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Journey to Un'Goro
	Blackrock Mountain Grand Tournament The League of Explorers Goblins vs Gnomes Naxxramas Hall of Fame
By rarity	Free Common Rare Epic Legendary