Heroic Plague Quarter Guide

Noth the Plaguebringer

I went with a fairly simple strategy of not making much in the way of dorks and just trying to get there with direct damage. Once you get established you can easily be doing 5 each turn with hero power and the little bow. 45 Life is not that great of an advantage when you basically don't have a hero power. I am sure there are better top end dorks you can play but I don't have all the cards and so these ones did fine being some of the toughest creatures in the game. A Deathwing would have been most lovely. It is always going to be fairly tight with your removal not always being the most convenient to use and having such a long way to go before you get anywhere near killing them. Having no card advantage to speak of, low reusable damage output and card disadvantage in Freezing Trap and Huntar's Mark you need to work hard at getting value from Explosive Shot / Trap and Multishot.


2x Hunter's Mark
2x Flare
2x Arcane Shot
2x Snipe
2x Misdirection
2x Freezing Trap
2x Explosive Trap
2x Eaglehorn Bow
2x Deadly Shot
2x Kill Command
2x Multishot
2x Exlposive Shot
2x Gladiator's Longbow
1x Ragnaros
1x King Crush
1x Malygos
1x Ysera




Heigan the Unclean


It seems I just love a hunter as I have now chosen them for half of the heroic bosses. For this boss I decided to just try and power through the hero power with cheap dorks, mass dork makers and the odd useful deathrattle guy. I figured that if I could stabilize against the starting 3/4 they have then I would be fairly capable of overwhelming and taking and easy win. Nerubian Egg is fairly non-synergic with the rest of the deck but it is a solid hard counter to the hero power and seems worth playing. Snake Trap was a bit of a liability as I have little taunt and tend to get smacked in the face due to being so low on life due to them starting with a 3/4. The Misdirection are key to getting the Snake Trap to trigger, in turn the Snake Trap and Unleash are fairly key to abusing the Buzzard and Hyena in good old hunter fashion. Overall this was the list I was least happy with but being a lucky bugger I drew fairly well with this hopeful selection of cards and got it done.

1x Huntar's Mark
2x Web Spinner
2x Timber Wolf
2x Scavenging Hyena
2x Starving Buzzard
2x Haunted Creeper
2x Nerubian Egg
2x Snake Trap
2x Misdirection
2x Explosive Trap
1x Freezing Trap
2x Animal Companion
2x Eaglehorn Bow
2x Unleash the Hounds
2x Kill Command
1x Deadly Shot
1x Multishot



Loatheb


Back to the priest to tackle the final boss, the main issue here is staying alive long enough to have a chance at winning. I figured Lightwell would be one of the best cards for this match up as it could offer sustained healing to counter the hero power without costing me mana as well as getting a nice attack bonus from the spores. The deck was just as much healing as I could ram in complete with the most efficient and suitable removal and then a smattering of things to give me some extra board presence so that spores we useful. Loathebs cards are not that powerful and the fact that they boost your cards means that you want a fairly low mana curve to give you the best chance to stabilize quickly. The Argent Commander were OK but rather on the pricey side, Cairn was just filler and should have been something better although I am not sure what. Where possible save spores so that you can pump multiple dorks, this makes your life a lot easier in terms of killing their things and getting a win before you get burned out.



2x Lightwarden
2x Voodoo Doctor
2x Northshire Cleric
2x Sheildbearer
2x Shadow Word Pain
2x Lightwell
2x Earthen Ring Farseer
2x Imp Master
2x Defender of Argus
2x Shadow Madness
2x Holy Nova
2x Darkscale Healer
2x Argent Commander
1x Cairn Bloodhoof
1x Cabal Shadowpriest
1x Holy Fire
1x Prophet Valen

Naxxramas Card Reviews

The main part of my Magic the Gathering blog is reviews for new cards, which seems like it is not going to be overly onerous to do for HearthStone as well. I am just going to talk about each new card and give it a fairly arbitrary X/10 rating with 10/10 being a card I anticipate a patch for and 0/10 being unplayable in any situation.



Haunted Creeper 8/10

This is an excellent little card that I was very temped to give a 9/10 rating. Being so cheap it has relatively low nominal power and won't drastically mix things up, instead it will just be a slight upgrade on something else fairly cheap. I think it is better than Harvest Golem and Novice Engineer when it was a 1/2. I don't think it will get nerfed however  as it wont just go in every deck like the 1/2. Overall you get a 3/4 for 2 mana which is a great deal. Although if this were the only way to rate it Harvest Golem would seem awful by comparison the fact that 1/2s and 1/1s are not that relevant on a board does reduce the power gap between the two cards. Haunted Creeper will never be dead, it is a great filler card for any deck wanting to make a board presence and it offers really good scaling with a wide array of cards such as Knife Juggler, Power of the Wild, Redemption, Starving Buzzard and a lot of others. When a card is good on its own as well as offering lots of synergy you are onto a winner. Expect to see lots of these in lots of decks.


Nerub'ar Weblord 3/10

This is a card that is only good when you are facing certain decks and as such should not be something you want very often. If the meta game swings to a place where most of the best decks have battlecry dorks and you have one with none then this might be just the ticket. If you have an arena deck with no battlecry cards then this is OK low curve filler however you won't know how much battlecry you have till you are done drafting and so there will be few occasions this is anything other than a terrible pick. Overall this is a constructed card but it is not one you can base decks around or on, it is just the kind of card that will allow metagames to adapt and counter. In other words there will be short periods of time where these can be good and then as soon as they would become a staple card in certain decks it will become less good again as people counter respond and leave you with a really low power 2 mana 1/4 do nothing.



Nerubian Egg 6/10

A nice design and a lot of potential power. Unlike the Haunted Creeper you cannot just say this is total 4/6 worth of dork for 2 mana as the 0 power on the first part makes it useless or even a hindrance on its own. You cannot even say this is a 2 mana 4/4 as you need to get the first part of the card dead. Nerubian Egg is a card of high variance. As said, on its own it is fairly useless, at best acting as a deterrent to AoE cards. As soon as you have ways to give it attack or taunt you suddenly have a card that can be considered more as a 4/6 for 2, things like Abusive Sergeants, Defender of Argus, Direwolf Alpha etc. Certainly it is easy to have some of these cards in a deck but the overall power of the Egg will depend on how many appropriate synergy cards you have. In a warlock board control style deck you should reliably be able to make the most of the card and so it will be near optimal, in other decks it will be really hopeful and way too inconsistent.


Maexxna 5/10

A very average legendary that is really a very slow removal spell rather than a threat. Two power for six mana is not getting a lot done to heroes however eight toughness and deathtouch (or whatever key word her ability is) should be able to kill of way more than one card and six mana worth of stuff. I can see the classes that struggle with removing big dorks perhaps playing her. Druids most so although she is a beast and so hunters may also have their uses for her. As a removal card she does leave a lot to be desired as she has no taunt or charge built in meaning she can either be ignored for a turn and leave you too far behind to recover or she can be Sapped or otherwise killed and not achieve any of the desired creature killing. All in all I don't think Argent Commander has much to be worried about.



Poison Seeds 3/10

A very interesting card that is too situational to shine on its own. As part of a more focused combo deck it could have its place but I fear it is still too fiddly and with not enough support from other cards to really abuse it. The main problem is that your opponent gets the first use out of the 2/2s and so has the choice of what to do. Usually it will be to beat your face in as sweepers are typically used when you are getting beaten up. It never solves a problem, only calms it down meaning you then need other cards to mop up with. It doesn't provide card advantage really and it is especially hard to have lots of dorks that becoming a 2/2 would be an upgrade to. Certainly a lot of the new cards work well with it such as Nerubian Egg and Haunted Creeper but it seems a bit of a gimmick than you can luck out and win with in a crushing way or more likely mess around with situational cards generally being underpowered and lose. Just play the new good cards with other good cards rather than hopeful bad ones. Synergy is great but consistency is king.



Anub'ar Ambusher 7/10

A 4 mana 5/5 with an easily negated drawback that can even be turned into an advantage. What is not to like? It is slightly better than a Chillwind Yeti but also more awkward. Like Nerubian Egg it scales with cards that work well with it, those being non-minion cards and (cheap) battlecry ones. If played and built sensibly with it should be rare to have the drawback be devastating and as such the extra power over Yeti will make it overall better. If played carelessly however you expose yourself to too much risk and would be far better off with good old reliable Yeti. Cards like this are good as they force you to think about other cards and not just go for the most powerful, as the most powerful depends on what else there is. Any sort of midrange deck is probably going to have a look at this and quite want to play it.



I'll be adding cards to this list as I have time rather than as they become playable.

Heroic Arachnid Quarter Guide

I managed to complete all three heroic bosses within ten attempts which means I was probably fairly lucky but also at least somewhat on the right track regarding my decks and strategies. With this being early on in regards the release of Naxxramas I thought it might be nice to share these things with you for any who want to complete the herioc modes without spending much time on the matter.

1.

The first boss (Anub'Rekhan) simply makes lots of 4/4 dorks for a measly 2 mana each. This is enough to beat most decks fairly squarely. There is no efficient way to grind a win against a non-stop stream of 4/4s, let alone when they start to cast the various things in hand. You cannot just rush down and race either as I did with most of the bosses in non-heroic mode as they start on 45 life. My strategy was to use a deck much like the old constructed mage giants using board control and sweepers to handle to monsters efficiently. To actually close out the game I had a few efficient little dorks that work well with the other cards in the deck and then a big pile of fat and powerful dorks that I could get into play free by killing their Deathlords.

This is my list

2x Mirror Image
2x Mana Wyrm

2x Sorcerer's Apprentice
2x Frostbolt

2x Arcane Intellect
2x Frost Nova
2x Mind Control Tech
1x Ice Barrier

2x Cone of Cold
2x Fireball

2x Blizzard

1x Cairn Bloodhoof
1x Sylvannas Windrunner
1x Meaxxna

2x Flamestrike

1x Ragnaros

1x Ysera

2x Sea Giant

I do not have a complete set (good old free to play games!) and so would likely play some better fatter legendaries if I had them. Overall the list is fine but not optimal. You need some luck in drawing the right tools in the right part of the game, ideally chaining board control effects for most of the midgame as well as drawing your cheap dorks early and not have them turn up when you invest in killing a Deathlord (the main purpose of the Fireballs and Frostbolts). Fortunately the AI is pretty awful when it comes to playing into your AoE effects which gives you a huge edge with this kind of deck. By far and away the easiest of the bosses! The Sea Giants are especially good in this deck as Anub goes full throttle making dorks allowing you to make them very cheap and therefore being able to control the board at the same time. You get a lot of mileage out of an 8/8 so even if they give it to you for free off a Deathlord you are still a happy Hearthstoner. Gruul would probably be very good as would I suspect a Deathwing if I had either. Meaxxna is not at all exciting in this list, 2 damage does not make her much of a threat and so she is basically just a slow removal spell. Molten Giant might well be viable but due to the extreme power of the things you are facing I would be a bit scared of going too low on life, it would at least make Ice Barrier better, perhaps even worth an Ice Block.


2.

Grand Widow Faerlina is gross, you simply cannot afford to have a deck that keeps much in hand due to her hero power. The problem with this is that you then struggle to have enough power within your cards to be able to take control of the game and find a win. I figured that the hunter was best equipped to dump its hand quickly and could even use equipment and traps to make some fairly early cards that don't just die to the hero power. I think this was the deck I got most wrong out of all three and therefore feel I was the luckiest to get a quick win with it. My plan was to try and ride a huge Scavenging Hyena to victory as it was one of the few cheap cards that I could reasonably get to being more powerful than the things Faerlina was up to.

2x Hunter's Mark

2x Stonetusk Boar
2x Timber Wolf
2x Arcane Shot

2x Explosive Trap
2x Snake Trap
2x Snipe
2x Misdirection
2x Freezing Trap

2x Scavenging Hyena
2x Haunted Creeper
2x Direwolf Alpha

2x Eaglehorn Bow
2x Animal Companion
2x Unleash the Hounds


Some of the cards in this deck are essential to getting a win while others are just terrible filler. Tracking might have been worth it just to increase my odds on getting those essential cards even if it doesn't help with reducing my hand size. Like I say, I was lucky in my draw and didn't get much chance to refine the list. Another potential inclusion is the Flesheating Ghoul who is just a bad version of the Scavenging Hyena but does at least offer some redundancy. The new card Haunted Creeper is perfect for the deck as it gives you so many more beasts to fuel your Hyena with and just works with the rest of the deck pretty well. The Eaglehorn Bow is another card that gives your low power deck a lot more longevity. Another AI fault I noticed was them playing overly defensively if I played aggressively despite Faerlina having the distinct advantage in tempo. As such I could get a lot more value in damage to the face out of my dorks and use my Bow liberally as removal.

Timber Wolf, Direwolf Alpha and to a lesser extent the Animal Companion (which is one of the more cuttable cards in the list simply due to cost) are all there to vastly scale up the power of your cards which produce multiple beasts. This can be for more efficient trades or making a significant dent on their life total. The traps are just the most efficient and powerful cards you can make early in the game and that do useful things. Snipe is fairly bad but does really help take out the Shade of Naxxramas which can be a pain otherwise. Freezing Trap should be ideally deployed as a way of defending your Scavenging Hyenas so that they can go the distance but this is one of the hardest things to do in the deck. Misdirection is a touch luck based but still one of your most powerful effects as it can very easily get you a two for one and it scales with the power level of the cards you are facing.

I looked at building a paladin deck first for this match but felt that although I could negate the hero power more quickly using the paladin I wouldn't be doing enough useful or powerful things myself to be able to actually win a game. Druid is the other potential option to defeat this boss however I think that would be a case of getting a lucky 2x Innovate opening hand.


3.

Finally Meaxxna, the most obnoxious of the bunch. She requires you to entirely build around and exploit her hero power to be able to take a win. You start so far behind due to not being able to keep anything on the board until you are making more than two dorks a turn while she begins with 2 Haunted Creepers and typically makes more. If you can make it to about 8 mana without being unrecoverably far behind or just plain dead you should be in good shape to take a win. It seems as if Meaxxna automatically casts her hero power every turn and as the first thing she does. This is very fortunate as it allows you to abuse Mind Control Tech and other battlecry cards something silly. If Meaxxna realised your strategy and used better sequencing on her hero power it would be very hard indeed to win. I used a priest so as to maximize my survivability and creature stealing mechanics but I think you have more options of class you can win this one with as the most important tools are all neutral cards.

2x Circle of Healing

2x Holy Smite
2x Voodoo Doctor
2x Elvish Archer
2x Abusive Sergeant

2x Merloc Tidecaller
2x Sunfury Protector
2x Ironbeak Owl
2x Shadow Word: Pain

2x Earthen Ring Farseer
2x Mind Control Tech

2x Defender of Argus
2x Auchenai Soulpriest
2x Shadow Madness

2x Holy Nova

Other cards that I played a bit with were Novice Engineer and Northshire Cleric but you really don't need the cards. Mad Bomber is fine but a bit random and Cabal Shadow Priest is good but just too expensive. I included the Auchenai Soul Priest / Circle of Healing combo just because I had space and felt like the chance on having more sweepers was worth it. It was not like I was short on cards in hand and as such could very easily afford to have situational dead cards.

The whole aim of this deck is to use cheap battlecry cards such that you gain enough advantage through repeat castings that you can eventually stabilize and overpower Meaxxna. They need to be cheap as you really are not doing very much until you can cast at least three dorks per turn (or two assuming one is a Tidecaller or Mind Control Tech). Your best cards are the life gainers, the taunt givers and of course the creature stealers. The first lot stop you just rolling over and dying to the extreme tempo advantage Meaxxna has. The second lot allow you to start to get some control over the board and dictate a little which creatures will be involved in combat and which not thus increasing your odds on keeping the things you want alive. Defender of Argus is one of your most late game cards and really needs to be hitting a board with at least 4 other dorks on your side. Sunfury Protector is also fairly late game despite his cost as you still need to have a reasonable board presence to merit making them. The creature stealers are your most efficient removal. Shadow Madness not only lets you kill two of their dorks a lot of the time it also allows you to reap the rewards of one of those dorks such as a juicy deathrattle. It does not have repeat use like Mind Control Tech as it will not be being webbed back into your hand all the time but it is just so very effective at making a huge swing in the game.

I hope you find this useful although having said that there wasn't anything on offer other than satisfaction for completing these tasks. Apparently I am to get a card back when I have done all of them in 4 weeks time... I would be very interested to see other peoples strategies for these bosses if they are different or any refinements to these lists. Happy HearthStoning!

Introduction

I am an old Magic the Gathering player who mostly now plays cube and blogs about it. When flying solo I prefer to play HearthStone than online Magic options. It is more convenient, better designed and much easier to do in small doses. I did a lot of Arena when it was released to build up a collection but now I mostly just complete my quests with constructed decks. I don't have the time to invest in playing seriously and getting to high rank but have a solid grasp on the game none the less due to my Magic background and the relative simplicity of HearthStone. For those few times I think I have something relevant to add on the subject of HearthStone I have created this little side project blog.