Acolyte of Pain

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## Acolyte of Pain

* Regular
* Golden

Artist: Dave Kendall

Artist: Dave Kendall

Collectible

Whenever this minion takes damage, draw a card.

## Availability

### Formats

Wild
Duels

## Flavor

*He trained when he was younger to be an acolyte of joy, but things didn’t work out like he thought they would.*

### Card id:

`EX1_007`

*You might be looking for one of these cards: Acolyte of Pain (Caverns of Time), Acolyte of Pain (Classic), Acolyte of Pain (Core).***Acolyte of Pain** is a common neutral minion card, from the Legacy set.

## Other versions

Core
Classic
Caverns of Time

## Sounds

Play
* ▶️ `VO_EX1_007_Play_01.wav` Let the pain speak to me.

Attack
* ▶️ `VO_EX1_007_Attack_02.wav` Bring the pain!

Death
* ▶️ `VO_EX1_007_Death_03.wav` Yesssss...

## Lore

*This section uses content from Wowpedia.*
*Acolytes are novice priests-in-training and are usually spellcasters. Many are human or undead members of the Scourge's Cult of the Damned or part of the Forsaken. These acolytes are most notably warlocks or priests. As part of the Scourge, Acolytes are loyal to the Lich King. If they are part of the Forsaken, they are loyal to Sylvanas.*
The card art depicts Mor'zul Bloodbringer.

## Trivia

- The artwork for this card comes from the *World of Warcraft Trading Card Game* "Scourgewar" series, for the card Mor'zul Bloodbringer.
- Acolyte of Pain may be compared to Magic: The Gathering's Shadowmage Infiltrator. Both cost 3 mana and have the same body (1/3), however, Infiltrator draws cards when it damages the enemy player, instead of when it's damaged.
- During the game's alpha, the developers initially "mis-judged" Acolyte of Pain, and originally featured it as a 2/4 minion. The card turned out to be extremely popular, with many players using 2 copies in every deck. As a consequence of the card's popularity, the average card draw experienced by players was increased, causing an overall shift toward cheaper cards. This in turn led to Silences becoming very popular, with many players considering them mandatory. As a result of Silence's increased popularity, many cards with powerful card text became far weaker options and fell out of favour. In time, this led to a perception of Silence being overpowered, and a subsequent call for it to be nerfed. However, the developers, looking into the imbalance, saw the Acolyte of Pain at the root of the problem, and by reducing it to a 1/3 were able to adjust the game's "ecosystem" without needly to strongly change other game elements; when the Acolyte was made less effective, it became less popular, reducing the amount of card draw in the game and reducing the value of Silences, which in turn rebalanced the value of many other minions.

## Patch changes

* **Patch 20.0.0.77662 (2021-03-25):**
	+ **2021-03-30:** Moved from Hall of Fame to Legacy set.
* **Patch 17.0.0.44222 (2020-03-26):**
	+ Moved from Classic to Hall of Fame set.
* **Patch 1.0.0.3890 (Closed beta, 2013-10-02):**
	+ Flavor text now reads: "*He trained when he was younger to be an acolyte of joy, but things didn’t work out like he thought they would.*" (previously: "*"That was uncomfortable... Every time I landed a blow, he squeeled in delight."*").
* **Patch 1.0.0.3140 (Alpha, April or May 2013):**
	+ Added.
* **Alpha patch (unknown date, pre-May 2013):**
	+ Now has 1 attack (Down from 2). (Video source)
## External links

- PlayHearthstone
- HSReplay.net
- Hearthpwn
- OutOf.Cards

## References

 1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hearthstone Panel BlizzCon 2013. (2013-11-09).