Poisonous

Poisonous
Destroy any minion damaged by this.

A Poisonous minion

Poisonous is a minion ability that causes any minion damaged by them to be destroyed. Poisonous minions on the battlefield are marked by a bubbling vial of poison at the bottom of their portraits. Poisonous is a type of triggered destroy effect.

Prior to Patch 7.1.0.17720, the Poisonous ability was represented by the text "Destroy any minion damaged by this minion".

Notes

Granting Poisonous to minions with triggered effects that deal damage to minions will cause those effects to become Poisonous themselves.^{[verification requested]}

Example: A Wild Pyromancer is adapted with Poison Spit. When its triggered effect activates, all minions dealt damage by the effect are destroyed, including itself.

Betrayal can be especially effective when used on a Poisonous minion; any adjacent minion without Divine Shield will be killed by the Poisonous effect.

Minions which deal damage as a Deathrattle which are adapted to be Poisonous will destroy every minion the Deathrattle damages. (Prior to Patch 9.0.0.20457, this did not happen if the minion died, but it did happen when the minion's Deathrattle was triggered by certain effects while it is still alive, such as Feign Death, Terrorscale Stalker, or Princess Huhuran.)

Example: A Fiery Bat gets the Poison Spit adaptation from Crackling Razormaw. Its deathrattle is triggered by Feign Death, and instantly destroys the minion it damages. Later the Fiery Bat dies and the deathrattle triggers again, again instantly killing the damaged minion.

Note: Before Patch 9.0.0.20457, a bug caused this interaction to work when triggering a Deathrattle without killing the minion, but not when the minion was actually killed.

Similar to poisonous minions, a Death's Bite that has been enchanted with Envenom Weapon will destroy all minions on the board, except those protected by a Divine Shield.

Strategy

While the stats of Poisonous minions are not always especially powerful, they offer a unique tactical advantage. Poisonous minions can destroy any opponent in a single strike, and can be used to single-handedly dispose of giants such as Ysera or even Deathwing.

Poisonous minions are generally disposable, intended for a single swift strike. However, abilities such as Divine Shield can allow you to make more extended use of them.

Poisonous minions only destroy minions to whom they have caused damage. Minions shielded with Divine Shield will not actually take damage, and will not therefore be destroyed. Reducing a Poisonous minion's Attack to 0 through means such as Shrinkmeister will likewise prevent the Poisonous effect from occurring.

Opponents will generally want to destroy Poisonous minions as quickly as possible, especially if they already have a powerful minion on the battlefield. The presence of a Poisonous minion, especially a Stealthed one, is a great deterrent to summoning any valuable minions, since they will likely be immediately removed from play by the Poisonous minion.

Cards

Name / Desc	Rarity	Type	Subtype	Class	Cost	Atk	HP	Description
Giant Wasp	Common	Minion	Beast	Any	3	2	2	Stealth Poisonous Float like a butterfly, sting like a giant wasp!
Stubborn Gastropod	Common	Minion	Beast	Any	2	1	2	Taunt Poisonous Stubbornly pursuing its dream to become Azeroth's fastest animal!
Venomancer	Common	Minion	General	Any	5	2	5	Poisonous Eight times the death of regular-mancers.
Druid of the Swarm	Rare	Minion	Beast	Druid	2	1	5	Taunt Poisonous
Druid of the Swarm	Rare	Minion	General	Druid	2	1	2	Choose One - Transform into a 1/2 with Poisonous; or a 1/5 with Taunt. The Druid awoke from troubling dreams to find herself transformed into a giant spider.
Druid of the Swarm	Rare	Minion	Beast	Druid	2	1	2	Poisonous
Emperor Cobra	Rare	Minion	Beast	Any	3	2	3	Poisonous The Sholazar Basin is home to a lot of really horrible things. If you're going to visit, wear bug spray. And plate armor.
Envenom Weapon	Rare	Spell		Rogue	3			Give your weapon Poisonous. Like Deadly Poison, but deadlier.
Plague Scientist	Rare	Minion	General	Rogue	3	2	3	Combo: Give a friendly minion Poisonous. The excruciating pain means it's working!
Venomstrike Trap	Rare	Spell		Hunter	2			Secret: When one of your minions is attacked, summon a 2/3 Poisonous Cobra. Snakes on a frozen plain.
Patient Assassin	Epic	Minion	General	Rogue	2	1	1	Stealth Poisonous He’s not really that patient. It just takes a while for someone to walk by that he can actually reach.
Toxic Arrow	Epic	Spell		Hunter	2			Deal 2 damage to a minion. If it survives, give it Poisonous. What doesn't kill you makes you toxic.
Showing all 12 cards

Wild format

 This section contains information exclusive to Wild format.

Name / Desc	Rarity	Type	Subtype	Class	Cost	Atk	HP	Description
Pit Snake	Common	Minion	Beast	Rogue	1	2	1	Poisonous It could be worse. It could be a Snake Pit.
Maexxna	Legendary	Minion	Beast	Any	6	2	8	Poisonous Maexxna gets super mad when people introduce her as "Maxina" or "Maxxy".
Showing all 2 cards

Adapt

In addition to the above cards, any card with the Adapt ability may become (or grant) the Poisonous ability with this choice:

See Adapt for full listings.

Trivia

Keyword

Poisonous is actually a triggered effect, but does not display the lightning-bolt icon found on all other triggered effects. However, when the Poisonous minion deals damage, the lightning bolt icon is revealed.

Before Patch 7.1, 'Poisonous' was not a keyword, but was represented by the text "Destroy any minion damaged by this minion", as well as a unique animated icon depicting a green bubbling flask. The case of the Poisonous ability was cited in 2014 by Ben Brode as an example where the developers could have added a keyword, but chose instead to simply describe the ability in full, since it was only found on 4 cards. This was changed in Patch 7.1.0.17720 during the lead up to Journey to Un'Goro, with the addition of the Poisonous keyword. The change was purely cosmetic, but appears to have been due to the introduction of a number of new Poisonous cards with Un'Goro, therefore justifying the creation of a keyword for the long-standing effect.

Poison vs Venom

At the time of its introduction, the keyword itself, Poisonous, was arguably technically incorrect for all four of the playable cards involved. This is because 'poisonous' animals such as snakes and spiders are in fact venomous, rather than poisonous; venom is injected whereas poison must be absorbed or ingested. For example, a venomous spider injects its prey with venom, while a poisonous frog is dangerous if eaten.

However, Ben Brode explains that the term "Poison" is inherited from World of Warcraft, where the term has long been used by the rogue class for a range of abilities and items used to deal additional effects when applied to their weapons. Hearthstone itself already contained a few such cards at the time, with more planned for the then-upcoming Journey to Un'Goro.

Patch changes

• Patch 9.0.0.20457 (2017-08-08): Poisonous will work with Deathrattles.
• Patch 7.1.0.17720 (2017-02-28): Poison effect is now named as Poisonous.
• Patch 1.0.0.3890 (2013-10-02): Poison icon and triggering flash added. Prior to this, cards with Poison had no icon, and did not flash when triggering their 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