I didn't even try this time. I spent way too much time playing Hearthstone, mining for gold on Play mode to access the Construct Quarter on Curse of Naxxramas. I straight out flew by the bosses (which were super easy) without a care other than a few deck retouches, barely blinked at the warrior and priest class challenges, and then spent an hour on Heroic until I decided that I wasn't going to let my crazy Saturday night with a cold get ruined by being stuck on Heroic Thaddius.
I relied heavily on Heartpwn.com this time as I snooped around for a few good decks to wipe out the evil foursome. I'm glad the gimmick nature of the bosses is maintained. Every single one of them requires, one way or another, a different approach from the last. Still, even in Heroic and before "cheating" for decks, I almost had the perfect approach to all bosses except Thaddius, making this the easiest quarter (in my view) since the
Arachnid Quarter despite the four bosses this time around
.
Patchwerk was the coolest boss. Something as simple as blocking his attacks turned out to be trickier than one might expect. A freeze mage was a no-brainer, so that's what I did. A well-timed Acidic Swamp Ooze at turns 3 and 4 to wear out his mana so my minions could survive made a world of difference. The same tactic applies on Heroic Patchwerk: freeze him whenever you can, and lay down as many minions as possible. When he starts killing minions by turn 4 or 5, hopefully they'll be Mad Scientists and Sludge Belchers (as they have very favorable Deathrattles).
Grobbulus (a name I
always double check because it will not stay in my brain) was not the nightmare I had heard about. He was easy enough with my standard all-around kick-ass warrior, but I did have to try around 5 times on Heroic. I chose a Druid because that's the best deck I looked up—no shame. If you get an Innervate and two Wild Growths, the game's yours. Throw down those big taunts as soon as you can, and pimp them up; Grobbulus doesn't have any Execute spells of any sort. If a big taunt, like Ironbark Protector is down to 1 health or so and you have a healing unit or better yet, the Healing Touch spell, go and use it on the taunt, it will only further hold back a few more of Grob's units while you attack face. His Hero Power is not that hard to get past with units like Deathlord or Stoneskin Gargoyle.
Gluth was the easiest along with Patchwerk. I thought his Hero ability would be one of the worst, but it wasn't the case. In normal mode, all minions are reduced to 1 health, whereas in Heroic, only your minions. That doesn't mean I didn't struggle, even though I had cool mage deck. The picture says so.
A mage is best, because his weapon is a 3/5 that gains attack power every time a Deathrattle minion dies, which is, like, all the time, man. Freeze him and Acid Swamp Ooze the heck out of his weapon. If he manages to kill one of those Oozes while your Duplicate spell is active, all the better.
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| Don't ask me how, but I messed this up |
Thaddius was the only one I wasn't sure how to approach. I tried my favorite classes of warrior, mage, but it became clear that executing Feugen and Stalagg early on wasn't enough against the constant vertigo-inducing Hero Power that flipped Health/Attack every turn. After many tries with some weird novelty "finest-deck-in-town!" stuff, I finally came upon an interesting druid deck, but failed. Even a sure-to-win warlock was promising, but failed.
Thaddius, kinda like Gothik, gave me a run for my money. I spent quite a while trying out different classes (my attempt with the hunter was a joke, as is documented graphically in this article; if you ever face a certain toolmns in Hearthstone and he/she is playing as hunter, you'll probably destroy said player). In the end, paladin was all it took, on my first try too!
Of course, I borrowed this deck from Heartpwn.com, but I played it right, so it's on me. Mind you, my draw was great—Equality and Unstable Ghoul. On turn 3, once flipped to 1 health, they inevitably went after the Ghoul, which let the whole board take 1 damage. Good riddance. After that, it was all manageable.
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| This time, it ain't sarcasm. |
This review differs from the last because I didn't walk you through the chronology of events, but rather boss by boss. It was all much easier so there was no need to record the plight of one epic ascension.
I now leave you with the decks used to kill the Heroic villains. Excuse me while I go grind some gold for Tuesday night's final
Curse of Naxxramas release. Sigh…
