Someone just played a Silvermoon Arcanist against me followed by two Garrotes. One of which they received when they played Cutting Class while holding a Kingsbane. However, regardless of how many Garrotes he plays or how many Bleeds are drawn during his turn none of that should have hit my hero for damage to finish me off. Those spells specifically say deal damage to the enemy hero despite Silvermoon Arcanist saying you can’t target the enemey hero. Somebody help me make sense of why I just lost that game because the logic isn’t adding up.
Silvermoon Arcanist
This turn only, I’m something of an Arcanist myself.
Spell Damage +2 Battlecry: Your spells can’t target heroes this turn.
Garrote
“I don’t have money… but what I do have is a particular set of skills.”
Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 3 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn.
Bleed
Casts when drawn. Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero.
Cutting Class
When you actually are the sharpest tool in the shed.
Draw 2 cards. Costs (1) less per Attack of your weapon.
You’re mixing up targetting heroes and affecting heroes
A targetted spell is a spell that requires to select a target
Any spell that has absolute targets is not a targetted spell
A spell that reads “deal damage to the ennemy hero” is not a targetted spel
The battlecry of Silvermoon Arcanist will prevent you from playing Eviscerate or Garrote face, but it will not prevent cards such as the the bleeds from garrote, Sinister Strike, or even Crash of Thunder to deal face damage
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That means you can’t select the enemy hero as a target, as you might with a spell such as Fireball that allows you to choose a target.
But when a spell has its target built-in, as Garrotte does, that is not considered a targeted spell.
So no, your opponent did not target you with Garrotte.
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I mean I feel like we’re trying to justify playing in the gray here because it seems like the target is already selected in for these spells. Deal 2 damage (the action) to the enemy hero (the target). Logically, if your spells can’t target heroes this turn, then none of that damage should have applied at least in that turn specifically. Outside of that turn if I didn’t do anything with Silvermoon Arcanist, then by all means all that extra spell damage should apply along with the spell’s initial damage.
The more interesting conversation might be something that just randomly hits targets but each of those individual damage instances has to ultimately have a target so again that shouldn’t impact my hero on that turn at all. AOE damage gets a little more interesting, but I guess that questions whether or not you include individual targets as a part of the total sumation of targets that would be impacted by something like “all enemies” or something along those lines.
And I feel like you’re overthinking it
All that the silvermoon arcanist is doing is preventing the player from manually, physically, dragging a targetted spell to a heroe’s portrait and that’s it
The card does not read “Your spells can’t damage heroes”. If they chose a very different wording it’s because they meant a different mechanic for it
If you have to target the ennemy hero : that’s a target
If you don’t have to target the ennemy hero : that’s not a target
You’re just putting the word “target” in situations where it doesn’t apply in that specific game
The real grey area is if a cast like eviscerate is cast by another card. I wouldn’t be shocked that it would be able to hit a hero, and this would be open to debate.