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!