What is Miniaturize in Hearthstone?

Hearthstone has many card effects that are common enough that they get their own keyword - a word or two that immediately tells you how the card works. Let's take a look at the Miniaturize keyword.

Get a 1-Cost 1/1 copy of this.

Miniaturize is a keyword that when a card with a keyword is played, it'll add a copy to your hand that costs 1 mana and has its stats to 1, although all numbers in its effect will remain unchanged. Due to the nature of affecting stats, the keyword is almost exclusively applied to minions, although one weapon does exist with it too. Miniaturize is like Twinspell in that the effect only applies once per card. Playing the 1/1 copy will not give you another 1/1 copy.

Keywords that Work Great with Miniaturize

Since Miniaturize is a keyword that is found on some select minions and there's no way to apply it directly to other cards, there aren't any keywords that have direct synergy with Miniaturize, but most keywords that do have some amount of indirect synergy with Miniaturize.

Any keyword on the Miniaturize card itself will basically apply twice, although passive keywords such as Taunt or Lifesteal will be weaker on the 1/1 minion since it'll be easier to clear. The mechanic works will with cards that grant Deathrattles to multiple minions such as Composting or Shadow Suffusion as the Miniaturize is not only another minion, but it's also extremely cheap.

Playing Against Miniaturize in Hearthstone

Playing against Miniaturize is generally the same across each Miniaturize card, although some of them will require slightly different action to take. If your opponent plays a Miniaturize card and then doesn't play the Mini in the same turn, then you'll already know that the Mini is in their hand. The Mini will always be a 1/1 (unless it gets handbuffed) meaning that it's generally not hard to kill, but due to the difference in effects on Miniaturize minions, they will force your into different situations. Playing against a Mini Nostalgic Initiate for instance is very different than playing against a Mini Toy Captain Tarim. If they keep the Mini in their hand, you'll need to formulate your plan on a card-by-card basis depending on what the base minion was.

Example Hearthstone Miniaturize Cards

Tigress Plushy is a very simple implementation of the Miniaturize effect by slapping a bunch of other keyword on a Miniaturize card. It combination of Rush, Lifesteal, and Divine Shield allows it to function as removal and small healing whilst maintaining board presence. This card demonstrates the way Miniaturize interacts with other keywords, as while the Lifesteal and Rush become weaker on the Mini version, the Divine Shield does not.

Amateur Puppeteer is a card that shows off a Miniaturize minion that synergizes with its Mini since its effect will buff all Undead in your hand by +2/+2 when it dies which includes the Mini version of as that will be added to your hand as soon as play the card. This means that the Mini can be thought of a 1 mana 3/3 instead of the typical 1 mana 1/1 Mini. The Mini version will even buff your hand even further giving a total of +4/+4 to your Undead in hand.

Boom Wrench is the only non-minion card with the keyword. Playing it will give you a 1/1 weapon in your for 1 mana, and while that generally isn't very strong, it does mean that it reaches its Deathrattle a lot faster which can be used for cards like Fireworker.

Toy Captain Tarim is a Legendary minion that demonstrates how the utility of some Miniaturize minions will vary greatly from the base form to the Mini form. In base form, Toy Captain Tarim will be used to raise the stats of one of your own minions (preferably a Silver Hand Recruit or something similarly small) to 3/7 which can be a very significant buff. The Mini version on the other hand will set a minion's stats to 1/1, effectively giving you a Subdue that costs 1 less mana and also has a 1/1 body. Best to use this on an enemy minion (or maybe one of your Eggs?).