Hearthstone Blackrock Mountain Heroic Guide: Highlord Omokk, General Drakkisath, Rend Blackhand

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft's Blackrock Mountain adventure continues, as this week's wing double-crosses Nefarius and starts taking down his own right-hand minions. 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 Highlord Omokk, General Drakkisath, and Rend Blackhand. As always, these strategies are formulated for their Heroic incarnations, but you should be able to handle the Normal bosses with the same strategies.

Highlord Omokk

Normal: 1 Mana - Destroy a random damaged enemy minion 
Heroic: 0 Mana - (Automatic) Destroy a random enemy minion

Omokk's power is hobbled on Normal difficulty, but it gets a big upgrade on Heroic. He'll start each and every turn destroying a random minion, which tends to give him a big tempo swing. It's also notable that this is the power to outright destroy minions, so elements like Divine Shield won't protect you.

The solution, naturally, is to flood the board with worthless targets. We found Paladin best for this, thanks to his hero power and the Muster for Battle spell that creates three 1/1s instantly. Plus, Paladin has some of the best cheap buffing spells in the game, like Blessing of Might and Avenge. Cards like Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg make for good trades when they happen to get crushed too. Just keep your board constantly flooded and don't put too many buffs on any one character. He'll keep taking down your minions, but you can keep pumping out more and hitting him in the face until he goes down.

Recommended Class: Paladin
Recommended Cards: Muster for Battle, Haunted Creeper, Blessing of Might

General Drakkisath

Normal: (Passive) All cards cost (1). Players are capped at 1 Mana crystal.
Heroic: 0 Mana - All cards cost (1). You are capped at 2 Mana crystals, and opponent at 1.

Drakkisath is tough. At first glance he seems very similar to Coren Direbrew from the first wing, with a Hero Power that encourages favorable two-for-one trades. However, Drakk is packed with spells that can instant-kill your minions, and since he has two mana to your one, he'll often be able to clear your board and then bring out one of his own. That leaves you at a severe disadvantage, and once the tempo of the match starts to get out of hand it's hard to reverse.

There's really no way around this: the best solution is a mixture of luck and Legendary minions. Specifically, Sylvanas Windrunner and Kel'Thuzad are an incredibly valuable combination. If you can get out Sylvanas on the first turn and then Kel'Thuzad on the second, you'll likely be able to steal one of his big minions while still retaining your own. Chances are he'll destroy Kel'Thuzad eventually, but by then you may have swung the match in your favor. Packing a Faceless Manipulator or two will help protect you from having either of your MVPs wiped out. Other than that, pack the deck with Giants, Force-Tank MAX, and value minions like Sneed's Old Shredder.

Occasionally, if the match gets out of hand, he'll use Twisting Nether to clear the board entirely. If you have a good enough tempo lead, you can use Loatheb to keep him from using it. More likely, you'll just have to rely on luck to make sure he doesn't draw it.

Since his passive ability renders your Hero Power unusable, and since the must-have combination for this match are both neutral Legendaries, picking the right class is less important in this bout. Multiple classes have positive features in their class specific cards: Mage's Counterspell can counteract a Twisting Nether, Warlock's Twisting Nether can reset the board if he gains too much ground, and Paladin's class Legendary Tirion Fordring comes with a Divine Shield and a weapon benefit. Play with the one you're most comfortable with.

Recommended Class: N/A
Recommended Cards: Sylvanas Windrunner, Kel'Thuzad

Rend Blackhand

Power randomly changes after each use
Normal: Summon three 1/1 Whelps / Summon Glyth (8/4) / Summon a 3/1 Dragonkin / Summon two 1/1 Orcs with Taunt
Heroic: Summon three 2/2 Whelps / Summon Glyth (8/8) / Summon a 5/4 Dragonkin / Summon two 2/2 Orcs with Taunt

Rend Blackhand seems intimidating, and to his credit he can flood the board with several minions or one big 8/8. Unlike Drakkisath (above) who all but requires Legendary minions that you may not have in your deck, Rend is pretty vulnerable to a standard, low-cost, mostly common aggressive Hunter deck.

Though his powers are randomized, he'll almost always summon 3 2/2s with its first use, and 2 more 2/2s with Taunt in his second. Since his minions are explicitly instructed to go for your face, a simple Explosive Trap will take care of them handily. For this reason, you should mulligan aggressively for an Explosive Trap (or a Mad Scientist to trigger it) within the first couple of turns. Even if you deal with his flood of minions without using an Explosive Trap, they'll have done enough damage that you may not withstand the continued assault later in the match, so it's really important to start the match off on the right foot.

By the time he begins summoning his 8/8, you should have a minion out that can take him down in conjunction with a Hunter's Mark. The 5/4 Dragonkin can be a pain, but you should have established enough board control by then. If he starts to flood the board again, you can take the pain back to him with Unleash the Hounds. Mix those in with some other standard aggro-Hunter cards like Wolfrider and Eaglehorn Bow, and he doesn't stand much of a chance. He's playing a very aggressive style, so this match comes down to a race. Using the proper Hunter tools, you can kill him before he kills you.

Recommended Class: Hunter
Recommended Cards: Explosive Trap, Hunter's Mark, Unleash the Hounds