Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft's Blackrock Mountain adventure concludes this week, as you explore the Hidden Lab. You can collect all of the new cards by finishing the Normal and Class challenges, but to really secure your bragging rights, you need to finish each boss on Heroic. The Heroic bosses get ratcheted up with outrageous difficulty spikes and unbalanced hero powers.
Fortunately for you, we've rigorously tested our decks and found how to take them all down. With a heavy dose of strategy and a little luck, you can earn the Heroic card back for beating every Heroic boss in Blackrock Mountain.
This wing pits you against the Omnotron Defense System, Maloriak, Atramedes, and Nefarian. As always, these strategies are formulated for their Heroic incarnations, but you should be able to handle the Normal bosses with the same strategies.
Normal: 2 Mana - Activate a Random Tron
Heroic: 2 Mana - Activate a Random Tron
The Omnotron Defense System can be tricky, because his power is so unpredictable. It will summon one of four mechanized "Trons," each with specialized abilities. He'll also play a well-rounded Mech deck, with lots of the cards from Goblins vs. Gnomes.
Since the Trons are each so differentiated, your best bet is to have a strong Control-type deck that can deal with a wide array of situations. We had the best luck with Paladin, since cards like Equality, Consecration, and Aldor Peacekeeper are great for controlling the battlefield. Just make sure to deal with his threats as they come. You'll need to prioritize eliminating Magmatron, since it's powerful and hurts you for playing cards. On the bright side, though, his ability hurts your opponent as well, and Omnotron isn't very judicious with his cards while Magmatron is on the board. If you can keep from playing too many cards at once and nerf Magmatron with Aldor Peacekeeper, you could leave it on the board and let Omnotron stupidly ping itself for a ton of damage.
Recommended Class: Paladin
Recommended Cards: Aldor Peacekeeper, Big Game Hunter, Consecration
Normal: (Passive) Minions Attack and Health are swapped.
Heroic: (Passive) Minions Attack and Health are swapped. Your minions have +2/+2.
Maloriak is easily the toughest boss of this set, which is funny considering how much his boss Nefarian mocks him. His standard difficulty is easy enough to deal with, but on Heroic the addition of 2/2 in stats for every minion he plays makes him a considerable threat. It's very difficult to gain and maintain board advantage with the odds stacked against you.
Before we go into the how-to for beating him, we should establish how you almost certainly won't win. Maloriak has a spell that summons three 1/1s with Charge, and on Heroic they become 3/3s. If he has this in his opening hand, he'll use his Coin to get it out the very first turn. If this happens, you should seriously consider conceding and starting over. It's just too difficult to recover from an immediate 9 damage, and so trying is likely a waste of time.
Your best chance against Maloriak is to take advantage of the one class and deck type that uses damage to your advantage: a Warlock, running the "Handlock" type. Make sure you include two Molten Giants, because you'll need them. You should also pack two Big Game Hunters, since his Sludge Belchers will become 7/5s. Hellfire can deal with several of his threats at once, since some of the early-game minions will have three health. Ancient Watchers are a good, cheap way to put Taunts on the board, and they can be Shadowflamed once his board fills. You might also want to consider Mind Control Techs to bring his minions to your side. Even with everything going for you, though, the stars really have to align perfectly for this fight. Don't be surprised if you have to try it several times.
Recommended Class: Warlock
Recommended Cards: Shadowflame, Hellfire, Molten Giant
Normal: 0 Mana - Equip a Weapon that grows as your opponent plays cards.
Heroic: 0 Mana - Equip a Weapon that grows as your opponent plays cards.
Atramedes has a weapon that grows the more you play cards. In Normal Mode, you automatically start with three cheap ways to shatter his weapon, but on Heroic it's all up to you. This might sound very threatening, but he's actually not as difficult as it seems. Since his weapon ability is so overpowered, his minions are on the weaker side--even on Heroic Mode. As long as you can deal with his weapon ability, handling the minions should be cake.
So how do you take care of his weapon? Your best defense is Harrison Jones. His weapon has lots of charges, so you can get a lot of value out of breaking it. Acidic Swamp Oozes work just as well, of course, but you don't get the card draw benefit. You can only destroy his weapon so many times, though, so it also helps to pack plenty of taunts like Sludge Belchers. He'll almost always have to attack it himself, using his weapon, which will cost him a charge plus some of his life.
Just about any class works for this strategy, but Paladin comes recommended for its Legendary Taunt with Tirion Fordring, and the ability to add Divine Shields to other Taunted minions to cost Atramedes an extra weapon charge.
Recommended Class: Paladin
Recommended Cards: Harrison Jones, Acidic Swamp Ooze, Sludge Belcher
Normal: 2 Mana - Summon 2 2/1 Bone Constructs
Heroic: 2 Mana - Summon 2 4/2 Bone Constructs
It all comes down to this. Nefarian returns from his untimely demise in the last wing, this time as a bone dragon with his own bone constructs. His power brings two powerful minions for a low cost. Once you shed his armor, he'll summon his sister Onyxia to attack you with her claws while he rains fire from above. Then, once Onyxia has been brought down, he'll destroy whatever minions you have on the board and go back to fighting you himself.
Sounds tough, doesn't it? Shockingly, it isn't. Since Nefarian follows such predictable phases of battle, it's very easy to set the pace of the match yourself and prepare for his threats, as long as you know when they're coming and prepare accordingly.
Spend the early part of the match establishing strong board control. Nefarian tends to overplay his hand, so he'll run out of cards quickly. At that point, you can just send out minions as necessary to deal with his minions.
You can avoid chipping off that last bit of armor until you're holding a Harrison Jones or Acidic Swamp Ooze. That way, as soon as he summons Onyxia, you can destroy her weapon and effectively neutralize her as a threat. He'll still ping you for some minor damage with his fireballs, but it's only 1-3 damage per turn.
Wait to finish off Onyxia until you you have plenty of cards and the board is full of minions you don't mind losing. Minions that spawn others upon death, like the Shredders, will leave you with some board presence when Nefarian does his board-clear. If you really want to toy with him, wait until he has something on the board worth stealing, and finish Onyxia while you have a Sylvanis Windrunner on the board. His best minions will immediately become yours. At that point you should have established enough control that finishing him off is no sweat.
Once again, any Control-type deck is fine for this, but his Bone Constructs are especially vulnerable to Consecration and Shielded Minibots. So again, we'd recommend using Paladin.
Recommended Class: Paladin
Recommended Cards: Harrison Jones, Shielded Minibot, Consecration
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