Fandral Staghelm

Fandral Staghelm

Regular

Gold

Set:	Whispers of the Old Gods
Type:	Minion
Class:	Druid
Rarity:	Legendary
Cost:	4
Attack:	3
Health:	5
Wiki tags:	Choose One-related, Ongoing effect

Your Choose One cards and powers have both effects combined.

Flavor text

Always manages to mention "Back when I was creating the World Tree…" in EVERY conversation. Sheesh! Enough already.

External links

Data page • Hearthpwn

Fandral Staghelm is a legendary druid minion card, from the Whispers of the Old Gods set.

How to get

Fandral Staghelm can be obtained through Whispers of the Old Gods card packs, or through crafting.

Card	Crafting cost	Disenchanting
Fandral Staghelm	1600	400
Golden Fandral Staghelm	3200	1600

Transformed minions

When a card with two Choose One options involving transform effects is played while controlling Fandral Staghelm, a unique minion will be produced that combines the effects of both options. These minions are not available except through Fandral Staghelm.

Cards

Resulting minions

Notes

A leafy green visual effect highlights playable Choose One cards while Fandral is active

• When the controlling player activates a Choose One effect, as a rule, effects will be activated in the order stated on the card. However, often when the reverse order would be specifically more beneficial to the player, that order will be used instead:
  • Playing Cenarius will activate Shan'do's Lesson before activating Demigod's Favor.
  • Keeper of the Grove will Silence first and damage second.
  • Dark Wispers will buff a target minion and then summon the Wisps.
  • Fatespinner will buff all minions then deal damage to them.
  • A list of all Fandral Staghelm interactions can be found here, or in this video.
• Fandral Staghelm will cause Choose One cards with a choice of two damaging effects to deal two separate damage events. (As of Knights of the Frozen Throne , this applies to only two cards: Wrath and Starfall). Both damage events are handled independently, but no death processing occurs in between.
  • Example: Casting Starfall on an Infested Tauren with Fandral in play first deals 5 damage to the Infested Tauren, leaving it mortally wounded, but its death will only be processed (and its Deathrattle triggered) after the second damage phase. The summoned Slime is not hit by the second damage phase and survives.
  • Example: When casting Starfall with both Fandral and a Kobold Geomancer in play, the Spell Damage will apply to both damage events, making the spell deal 6 damage to the target and 3 damage to all enemy minions.
  • Example: When casting Wrath on a Silvermoon Guardian with Fandral in play, the first damage event will remove the Divine Shield and the second damage event will actually deal its 1 point of damage, leaving the Silvermoon Guardian at 2 Health.
  • Example: Casting Wrath on an Acolyte of Pain with Fandral in play causes the controlling player to draw two cards. The first damage event deals 3 damage and leaves the Acolyte mortally wounded, but its death is not resolved so it incurs one extra point of damage and draw one extra card from the second damage event.
  • Example: Casting Wrath on a Grim Patron that has been buffed to at least 5 Health causes two new Grim Patrons to spawn, since both damage events deal damage without killing the Patron.
• Choose One cards with targeted effects will use the same target for both effects. For example, Wrath will deal both damage events to the same minion, as opposed to dealing 3 damage to one minion and 1 damage to another. Likewise, Keeper of the Grove will both Silence and deal 2 damage to the same minion.
• Due to how Choose One effects combine such as Wrath combining both effects to effectively deal 4 damage and draw a card (essentially doubling the value of the card), it's arguable that a card like Druid of the Flame, due to its wording, should combine the stats of both transformation creating a 7/7 as opposed to a 5/5. This is an additional wording issue to Transform cards that has been debated in the Hearthstone community since release.
• Unlike the above examples, Malfurion the Pestilent's Battlecry will summon two 1/2 Poisonous Spiders and two 1/5 Scarabs with Taunt, as opposed to summoning two minions with the combined effects.
• Fandral Staghelm will cause Choose One spells picked by Yogg-Saron, Hope's End to have their combined effect.
• Before Patch 9.0.0.20457, damaging effects (Wrath and Starfall) were combined into one instance of damage, rather than dealing damage twice. This meant that Spell Damage was only applied once, not twice.

Previous bugs

• Before Patch 9.0.0.20457, using Starfall on a friendly minion dealt 7 damage instead of 5. (The spell's effects of 5 damage to target minion and 2 damage to all enemy minions were combined into 7 damage to target then 2 to all other enemy minions - but they forgot to handle the case where Starfall's target is friendly, not enemy.)

Strategy

Preparing to play a Choose One card, with Fandral active

Most of the Druid's Choose One effects are balanced so that each effect is reasonable for the Mana cost. Gaining both effects will drastically increase the value of each of your Choose One cards, such as turning Ancient of War into a 10/10 Taunt Minion for 7 Mana, Raven Idol allowing you to discover two cards for only 1 Mana, Nourish providing you with both 2 Mana Crystals as well as 3 cards, and many more.

While it would be ideal to keep Fandral Staghelm on the field as long as possible to benefit from his fantastic effect, your opponent will likely plan to annihilate him as soon as they possibly can. Taunt minions can protect him from attacks; most fittingly, Mark of Nature can provide a friendly minion with +4/4 and Taunt for only 3 Mana, converting it into a powerful guardian to keep Staghelm safe. Unfortunately there's no real way to keep him save from removal via spells, so unless you are able to bait your opponent's removal cards and are certain they have no option to destroy Staghelm, it would usually be wise to save him for your late game, where you can get off a few Choose One effects the turn he's summoned. Even if he's destroyed the following turn, you'll have gained enough added value from his presence that the board will most likely be turned entirely in your favor.

Quotes

Summon

Behold the rage of the Firelands.

When summoned against Tyrande

You will lead our people to ruin!

Attack

Nothing but ash!

Lore

This section uses content from Wowpedia.

Fandral Staghelm was formerly the Archdruid of Darnassus, succeeding Malfurion Stormrage after he was lost in the Emerald Nightmare. He was in a constant power struggle with Tyrande Whisperwind, High Priestess of Elune, for leadership of the night elf people, and was one of the architects of the plan to create Teldrassil. After it was revealed that he had been corrupted by the Nightmare himself and had prolonged Malfurion's absence, Fandral eventually descended into madness and was to be imprisoned by the Cenarion Circle. He was captured when he was being moved to Moonglade from Mount Hyjal and turned into the first Druid of the Flame, becoming the new Majordomo of the Firelands, until he is killed during the final battle against Ragnaros.

Trivia

• This card marked the first time a set had added new cards to another set, with Whispers of the Old Gods serving to add three new minions to the Classic, Blackrock Mountain and The Grand Tournament sets.

Artist

Template:Setartist

Gallery

Fandral Staghelm, full art Fandral Staghelm, as the Majordomo of the Firelands in the Firelands raid.

Patch changes

• Patch 9.0.0.20457 (2017-08-08): In order to accomodate for Malfurion the Pestilent's Plague Lord Hero Power, Fandral Staghelm now reads: Your Choose One cards and powers have both effects combined. Furthermore, damage-dealing Choose One cards are now processed as two separate damage events; previously they were combined into a single event.
• Patch 5.0.0.12574 (2016-04-24): Added.