Undead

Kel'Thuzad, a lich. The undead come in many shapes and sizes.

Undead is a minion type. It was introduced in March of the Lich King.

Most Undead minions tend to have their effects activated only if another friendly Undead minion died after the player's last turn. This means that some Undead gain bonus effects if a friendly Undead died during the opponent's last turn or earlier on their current turn.

Reborn is a recurring theme on Undead minions, and it was reintroduced as an evergreen ability in March of the Lich King, originally being an expansion-exclusive ability in Saviors of Uldum. Death Knights and Priests are usually associated with Undead minions.

Undead minions

For Wild format listings, see Undead/Wild format.

Collectible

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Uncollectible

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Sources of Undead

For Wild format listings, see Undead/Wild format.

Undead-generating

These cards can generate or summon new Undead minions.

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Related cards

For Wild format listings, see Undead/Wild format.

These cards have effects related to Undead.

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Achievements

	Category	Name	Description	Rewards
	Gameplay - Lich King - Priest	A Graveyard Smash	Summon 25 Undead in one game as Priest.	20
	Gameplay - Lich King - Warlock	Scavenging Cube	Summon 16 different Undead with Amorphous Slime.	20
	Gameplay - Lich King - Neutral	Look at All Those Chickens!	Hatch 30 Undead Chickens from Foul Eggs.	20
	Gameplay - Lich King - Neutral	Look at All Those Chickens!	Hatch 60 Undead Chickens from Foul Eggs.	20 , 2x Golden Foul Egg (Uncraftable Common)
	Gameplay - Lich King - Neutral	Blight of the Scourge	Summon 200 Undead.	10
	Gameplay - Lich King - Neutral	Blight of the Scourge	Summon 400 Undead.	10
	Gameplay - Lich King - Neutral	Blight of the Scourge	Summon 600 Undead.	20 , 2x Golden Banshee (Uncraftable Rare)
	Gameplay - Festival of Legends - Death Knight	Giant Following	Summon a 10/10 or bigger Undead with Arcanite Ripper.	20
	Gameplay - Titans - Death Knight	Poor Social Distancing	Destroy 25 minions with Poisonous Undead.	20
	Gameplay - Titans - Death Knight	Poor Social Distancing	Destroy 50 minions with Poisonous Undead.	20

History

The developers have considered adding the undead minion type ever since the development of Curse of Naxxramas, and Mike Donais describes it as "the minion type that has come up the most often". The type was "talked about [...] a lot" during the development of Knights of the Frozen Throne, but the team ultimately decided that it was "not quite worth it" to implement. At the time, the undead type was something that may still be added in the future, but there were no plans to do so. In Donais' opinion, there aren't too many disadvantages to making a new minion type, but one of the reasons the team chose not to do it was because of the addition of the Elemental type in the preceding Journey to Un'Goro expansion, and "doing two new minion types in a row didn't really make sense to me".

Alongisde the launch of March of the Lich King and the death knight class, the undead minion type was finally added into the game.

Lore

Main article: Undead art

This section uses content from the Warcraft Wiki.

The undead were once-living creatures, now animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. The term undead refers to all creatures or entities that function normally despite having terminated life functions. Most commonly known as zombies or ghosts, undead beings are most typically mindless, bloodthirsty fiends hostile toward any living thing that comes across their path.

The undead have appeared all throughout Azeroth, most commonly in nature as revenants or wraiths. They were used as a combat tool during the First War when the necrolytes of the Horde learned to animate corpses as skeleton warriors in their fight against the Alliance. Later, the studies of the necrolytes developed into necromancy, the form of magic used very heavily in the Third War when the Cult of the Damned spread the Plague of Undeath across Lordaeron.

In modern times, "undead" refers primarily to either the Scourge or the Forsaken, since nearly half of the human race have since become undead. According to the lore in most sources, the Forsaken share all the characteristics of standard undead. However, Forsaken player characters and NPCs are for most intents and purposes considered to be "humanoids" in World of Warcraft due to gameplay reasons and do not share all the characteristics of other undead.

In Hearthstone

The undead in hearthstone are represented by various different species, such as abominations, Forsaken, geists, ghosts, ghouls, liches, and undead beasts.

Trivia

• Undead is the largest new minion type addition after the game's release. Undead instantly became the second-largest minion type after its introduction in March of the Lich King, only staying behind Beasts.
• Despite previous minion types being retroactively added to Tavern Brawl cards and boss cards, there are no plans to update old non-constructed cards with Undead types.
  • The reasoning for this is likely the fact that there are a vast amount of existing non-tagged undead minions, as well as that the development priorities of Team 5 don't include non-constructed content.