Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk

Regular
Golden

Artist: Jakub Kasber

Collectible • Elite

Battlecry: If your Hero Power dealt 8 damage this game, summon Ragnaros the Firelord.

Cost:

7

Attack:

4

Health:

4

Minion type:

Beast

Keywords
`BATTLECRY`

Full tags
`RARITY=5` `CLASS=4` `COLLECTIBLE=1` `ELITE=1` `COST=7` `HEALTH=4` `ATK=4` `CARDTYPE=4` `BATTLECRY=1` `CARDRACE=20` `PLAYER_TAG_THRESHOLD_VALUE=8` `PLAYER_TAG_THRESHOLD_TAG_ID=1025` `COLLECTION_RELATED_CARD_DATABASE_ID=53181`

Wiki mechanics
Battlecry, Summon

Wiki tags
Elemental-generating, Game-related, Hero Power-related

Availability

Formats

Wild
Duels

Flavor

You mess with the Bird, you get the Firelord.

Card set:

Rastakhan's Rumble

Rarity:

Legendary

Race:

Wild God

Background race:

Bird

dbfId:

50088

Card id:

TRL_316

Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk is a legendary mage minion card, from the Rastakhan's Rumble set.

How to get

Type	Source	Quality	Count
Card packs	Open one of these card packs:	Regular Golden	1 (random)
Crafting	Craft a Regular copy for 1600	Regular	1
Crafting	Craft a Golden copy for 3200	Golden	1

Related cards

Notes

To edit these notes, go to Template:Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk notes.

Jan'alai tracks the total amount of damage the player has dealt with any of their Hero Powers that game. The counter is not reset if the player returns Jan'alai to their hand or deck and plays her again,^[1] nor does it reset if the player changes their Hero Power during the course of the game (such as by using a hero card).^[2]
Jan'alai tracks damage dealt to any target by your hero power, including self-damage such as Life Tap.
In-game, Jan'alai's card text includes a counter informing the player how much more Hero Power damage they need to deal before Jan'alai's Battlecry effect can trigger; for example, if the player has yet to deal any damage with their Hero Power, "(8 left!)" will be displayed at the end of the card text, whereas if the player has dealt enough damage to summon Ragnaros, the counter will change to simply say "(Ready!)". This counter is not shown in the collection manager and is only displayed while Jan'alai is in the player's hand in-game.^[3]

Sounds

Play

▶️ VO_TRL_316_Female_Dragonhawk_Play_02.wav Spirit of the flame
▶️ Janalai_Play_Stinger.wav <music stinger>

Attack

▶️ VO_TRL_316_Female_Dragonhawk_Attack_02.wav Fan the flames!

Death

▶️ VO_TRL_316_Female_Dragonhawk_Death_01.wav <death sound>

Lore

This section uses content from Wowpedia.

Jan'alai is the dragonhawk loa of the Amani trolls.

In Zul'Aman, Hex Lord Malacrass stole her essence, imbuing it into one of the Amani's deadliest rogues. Jan'alai's spirit is chained by Zul'jin. She is freed when the chieftain troll is killed.

Jan'alai appears with the other Amani gods in Zul'Drak, directing the player to the leopard goddess, Har'koa. The Amani gods are also summoned and tell the player to defeat the guardians at the Altar of Quetz'lun and kill the Prophet of Akali.

Jan'alai appears in Zul'Aman where her spirit is chained by Daakara. He is freed when Daakara is killed.

A Disciple of Jan'alai is present in Tal'aman, the Amani tribe's enclave in Zuldazar.

In Hearthstone lore, Jan'alai serves as the patron loa of Jan'alai's Dragonhawks, the mage team in Rastakhan's Rumble. Her connection to Ragnaros is unique to Hearthstone.

Trivia

Jan'alai went through a number of iterations during the development of Rastakhan's Rumble. The developers always wanted to include the effect "Your Hero Power also targets adjacent minions" on one of the set's mage cards to play into the fiery Hero Power theme of Jan'alai's Dragonhawks, but the effect shifted around between

Spirit of the Dragonhawk,

Pyromaniac, and Jan'alai herself throughout development. Another similar idea was a card reading "Spell Damage affects your Hero Power", and at one point Jan'alai was a 6-mana 4/4 minion with this effect as well as Spell Damage +3. This effect was later moved to Spirit of the Dragonhawk, but according to Peter Whalen, the deck didn't quite work due to the difficulty of trying to include both Hero Power and Spell Damage cards. Thus, Jan'alai was changed to have a more direct pay-off as a 6-mana 4/4 with "Battlecry: Summon every minion you've killed with your Hero Power", but this had two major issues, the first of which was that players "really, really, really hate" being beaten by their own minions. The second issue was that this design forced both players to keep track of every minion that died even if the mage player hadn't drawn Jan'alai yet. As a result, the designers wanted to find another version of Jan'alai in the same space, with a similar mana cost and an effect that gave players some mid- to late-game value as well as tempo. They started discussing "awesome fire creatures" from Warcraft and Hearthstone's past and eventually settled on simply bringing back Ragnaros, who felt perfect for the role.^[4]

Jan'alai's flavor text is a reference to the internet meme "You mess with crabo, you get a stabo", which is associated with pictures of mostly non-harmful animals holding knives or firearms one way or another.