Hearthstone Wiki:Archived/Freeze

Archived/Freeze
Frozen characters lose their next attack.

A Frozen minion

A Frozen hero

Freeze is an ability that marks a minion or hero as Frozen. Frozen characters miss their next possible attack. After this, the Frozen status is removed.

Frozen status only affects combat. Frozen heroes can take all other actions as usual, including using their Hero Power, playing cards, equipping weapons and commanding minions. Frozen characters will also still defend themselves if attacked. Silencing a Frozen character will remove the Frozen status.

Freeze effects are mostly limited to the mage and shaman classes.

Notes

• Minions that have a Battlecry ability to attack one or more targets multiple times (e.g. Warmaul Challenger, Deathwing, Mad Aspect) will not stop their attack if they attack a minion that freezes during their attack.

Strategy

Freeze effects are useful for stopping strong minions before they become a problem. Alternatively, they can be used to buy time to defeat the targets, or simply to reduce incoming damage by preventing attack this round, especially when using multi-target Freezes such as Frost Nova.

Duration

Frozen characters are unable to attack, and will not thaw until the end of the turn on which they did not attack. The exact duration of the Frozen effect therefore varies depending on whether the character has already attacked that turn. Note that it does not matter whether or not the character is able to attack (such as if they have 0 Attack or the "Can't Attack" text), only whether or not they attacked. This behaviour can be significant when attacking with characters with Windfury, and in predicting vulnerability to Ice Lance. The game rule is therefore:

• After a player ends their turn (just before the next player's Start of Turn Phase), un-Freeze all characters they control that are Frozen, don't have summoning sickness (or do have Charge) and have not attacked that turn.

This rule produces varying durations depending on circumstances:

• For enemy characters on your turn, the result is very simple: if you Freeze an enemy character during your turn, it will thaw at the start of your next turn.
• For friendly characters on your turn, it depends on whether or not they have attacked that turn.
  • If a friendly character gets Frozen before attacking, they will un-Freeze at the end of the turn. This includes characters which were unable to attack, such as a 0 Attack minion or hero.
  • If a friendly character gets Frozen after attacking, they will un-Freeze at the end of the next turn. This includes characters with Windfury who have only attacked once this turn.
• Unlike Charge minions, Rush minions are not treated specially by Freeze effects. If a Rush minion is Frozen before it can make its Rush attack against a minion, it skips both its Rush attack and its regular attack next turn.

Examples:

• If a mage Freezes herself and ends the turn, she will immediately become un-Frozen.
• If a player Freezes his own minion before it attacks and ends the turn, that minion will immediately become un-Frozen.
• If a player Freezes his own minion with Windfury that has only attacked once so far this turn, and ends the turn, that minion will remain Frozen until the end of the player's next turn.
• If a player plays a Charge minion, Freezes it and ends the turn, that minion will immediately become un-Frozen.
• If a player plays a minion that does not have Charge, including Can't Attack minions such as Ancient Watcher and 0 Attack minions, Freezes it and ends the turn, that minion will remain Frozen. The next time the player ends their turn, the minion will finally un-Freeze. The reason it did not un-Freeze the first turn is because the minion had summoning sickness.
• If a player Freezes and takes control of an enemy minion (either order), it has summoning sickness, so it will remain Frozen until the end of that player's next turn. (If it had Charge, it will immediately become un-Frozen when ending turn.)
• If a minion begins the turn Frozen, and the player duplicates it (for example, with Emperor Wraps), the duplicate will be Frozen and will have summoning sickness. At the end of the turn, the original minion will become un-Frozen, but the duplicate will remain Frozen until the end of the player's next turn.
• If a hero is frozen, and they play a Hero card, the hero will become un-Frozen.

Achievements

	Category	Name	Description	Rewards
	Gameplay - Barrens - Mage	Shatter Combo	Destroy 50 Frozen minions.	20
	Gameplay - Barrens - Mage	Don't Move a Muscle!	Freeze 25 characters with Elementals.	10
	Gameplay - Barrens - Mage	Don't Move a Muscle!	Freeze 75 characters with Elementals.	20
	Gameplay - Alterac Valley - Shaman	Winter Vacation	Freeze 150 characters as Shaman.	10
	Gameplay - Alterac Valley - Shaman	Winter Vacation	Freeze 300 characters as Shaman.	10
	Gameplay - Alterac Valley - Shaman	Winter Vacation	Freeze 600 characters as Shaman.	20
	Gameplay - Badlands - Dual Class	That's Cold-Blooded	Freeze 60 minions with Soulfreeze.	100 , 10
	Gameplay - Badlands - Dual Class	That's Cold-Blooded	Freeze 120 minions with Soulfreeze.	200 , 20