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[blueblimp]

Fun bosses this week. My strategies:

Razuvious (hard; also I found a bug): This guy's weapon is a huge problem, since his deck is loaded with them, so if you don't have a taunt up, you can take a surprise 20 damage. I turned the tables with a gimmick Priest deck having Mind Vision, Thoughtsteal, and Captain Greenskin, aiming to steal his weapon and kill him with it, plus enough defensive measures (taunts and oozes/corsairs) to not die immediately. I got amazing luck, so it worked first try. The bug is that a Greenskinned Runeblade only does 21 damage to face rather than the 22 = 11x2 that it should.

Gothik: Since his draw-a-card ability is auto-cast, obviously Blizzard wants you to mill him. I put together a gimmick Rogue milling deck having the usual Coldlight Oracle, Mukla, and Sap, but also Vanish and Kidnapper. Vanish did some serious work, but Kidnapper is fairly bad even in this deck. Somehow I win this with 1 health, his deck and hand both completely exhausted.

Rivendare: This guy is a cakewalk compared to the previous two. Shadow Word: Pain is great, Cabal Shadow Priest is great, Deathlord is great since he has no minions.

[markusin]

The role of dancing swords is clearly to combo with baron rivendere, coldlight, and mukla to burn a ton of the opponent's cards.

It's meant to combo with Faerlina's hero ability, just like wailing soul is meant to combo with that minion that kills its adjacent allies on deathrattle.

Seriously, some of these Naxxramas seem to be designed just for the bosses.

[Titandrake]

Rivendare on heroic is really easy once you realize the right strategy. Used Priest, like pretty much everyone else. Drew both SW: pain early to kill 2 right away. Silenced the last one with a Silence, then healed up. After he used both weapons, he could only do 2 damage per turn, his hero power made his hand full, and I had no creatures so he couldn't play anything.  Just let him die to fatigue.

[EgorK]

Dancing Swords...good?  Seems to compare to Mukla.

3 mana for a 4/4, give your opponent a card at removal.  Nonbo with the Baron.

Mukla is 3 mana for a 5/5, give your opponent two +1/+1 cards.

I think it's not even close to as good. The difference between 4/4 and 5/5 is huge, and 2 Bananas are probably worse than an average card from your opponent's deck.

You are right, but one is a common and the other is a legendary.  There should be something that sets them apart.  I feel like they play the same role, is all.

I think the role of Dancing Swords is sitting unused in your collection. At 4 health, it's too easy for it to get blown out by stuff like Soulfire, Eviscerate, Backstab+SI:7, etc... You're giving up a whole card to get 1 more health than an Injured Blademaster.

Actually they seems good in my zoo, and would probably be even better when we'll get undertaker

[HiveMindEmulator]

^Yeah I was being somewhat facetious. There are decks that don't actually care about card advantage, particularly aggro decks. In an aggro deck, you're happy to trade a card for 4 face damage, and if that giving up a card is in the form of them drawing rather than you discarding, it's even better. I think it's highly questionable in Zoo though. There are enough 3-drops that trade better that I doubt you want it.

[EgorK]

^Yeah I was being somewhat facetious. There are decks that don't actually care about card advantage, particularly aggro decks. In an aggro deck, you're happy to trade a card for 4 face damage, and if that giving up a card is in the form of them drawing rather than you discarding, it's even better. I think it's highly questionable in Zoo though. There are enough 3-drops that trade better that I doubt you want it.

Well, 2+/2 minions are out of grace lately due 2 being good target for abused/DID eggs, so it just takes SSC place basically. And it probably not that sexy now, but would be once undertakers are out

[Titandrake]

I'm feeling that many of the heroic bosses are beatable with Priest. The games are set up such that you lose unless you get a good draw a lot of the time, so a gimmicky Priest deck can usually win with the right luck. For Razuvious, try to Mind Vision the weapon. For Gothik, I killed the 5/6, then 2 Power Word Shield + Divine Spirit + Inner Fire on the 0/6 soul and kill in 2 turns because he doesn't have hard removal besides Corruption. For 4 Horsemen, kill cards that deal with minions perfectly and enough healing to buy time...

Priest is a class that has lots of answers, but relies on luck to draw the right answers for the right deck. In Heroic, you're going to need luck anyways, so you might as well either steal their good cards or stack your deck with the answers, or just a gimmick Divine Spirit/Inner Fire.

[KingZog3]

I'm feeling that many of the heroic bosses are beatable with Priest. The games are set up such that you lose unless you get a good draw a lot of the time, so a gimmicky Priest deck can usually win with the right luck. For Razuvious, try to Mind Vision the weapon. For Gothik, I killed the 5/6, then 2 Power Word Shield + Divine Spirit + Inner Fire on the 0/6 soul and kill in 2 turns because he doesn't have hard removal besides Corruption. For 4 Horsemen, kill cards that deal with minions perfectly and enough healing to buy time...

Priest is a class that has lots of answers, but relies on luck to draw the right answers for the right deck. In Heroic, you're going to need luck anyways, so you might as well either steal their good cards or stack your deck with the answers, or just a gimmick Divine Spirit/Inner Fire.

Probalby most are doable with preist. I don't think Loatheb is. I haven't beat him yet. Neither is helgen. They need other decks I think.

[markusin]

I'm feeling that many of the heroic bosses are beatable with Priest. The games are set up such that you lose unless you get a good draw a lot of the time, so a gimmicky Priest deck can usually win with the right luck. For Razuvious, try to Mind Vision the weapon. For Gothik, I killed the 5/6, then 2 Power Word Shield + Divine Spirit + Inner Fire on the 0/6 soul and kill in 2 turns because he doesn't have hard removal besides Corruption. For 4 Horsemen, kill cards that deal with minions perfectly and enough healing to buy time...

Priest is a class that has lots of answers, but relies on luck to draw the right answers for the right deck. In Heroic, you're going to need luck anyways, so you might as well either steal their good cards or stack your deck with the answers, or just a gimmick Divine Spirit/Inner Fire.

Probalby most are doable with preist. I don't think Loatheb is. I haven't beat him yet. Neither is helgen. They need other decks I think.

I can confirm that both Heigen and Loatheb are doable with Priest. Again, luck needs to be on your side.

I'm seeing a lot of Priests use Deathlord these days. It's hard to burst it down in one turn so that the Priest can't heal it. The health doubler can also make it ridiculous without good removal, but the Deathrattle can make up for it.

[ashersky]

So I just pulled off:

T2 nerubian egg
T3 ssc on egg
T4 baron rivendare, kill egg, double spiders
T5 egg + pit terror, double spider

Pretty crazy.

[blueblimp]

I'm feeling that many of the heroic bosses are beatable with Priest. The games are set up such that you lose unless you get a good draw a lot of the time, so a gimmicky Priest deck can usually win with the right luck. For Razuvious, try to Mind Vision the weapon. For Gothik, I killed the 5/6, then 2 Power Word Shield + Divine Spirit + Inner Fire on the 0/6 soul and kill in 2 turns because he doesn't have hard removal besides Corruption. For 4 Horsemen, kill cards that deal with minions perfectly and enough healing to buy time...

Priest is a class that has lots of answers, but relies on luck to draw the right answers for the right deck. In Heroic, you're going to need luck anyways, so you might as well either steal their good cards or stack your deck with the answers, or just a gimmick Divine Spirit/Inner Fire.

I disagree with needing luck to beat Heroic. OK, in some sense you do, in that you're not going to win with bad luck. But I don't think you need great luck. For most of these bosses, it only took 1-2 tries to win with the last deck I tried, and I only tried ~2-3-ish decks, so I'm sure much higher winrates are possible.

[markusin]

I'm feeling that many of the heroic bosses are beatable with Priest. The games are set up such that you lose unless you get a good draw a lot of the time, so a gimmicky Priest deck can usually win with the right luck. For Razuvious, try to Mind Vision the weapon. For Gothik, I killed the 5/6, then 2 Power Word Shield + Divine Spirit + Inner Fire on the 0/6 soul and kill in 2 turns because he doesn't have hard removal besides Corruption. For 4 Horsemen, kill cards that deal with minions perfectly and enough healing to buy time...

Priest is a class that has lots of answers, but relies on luck to draw the right answers for the right deck. In Heroic, you're going to need luck anyways, so you might as well either steal their good cards or stack your deck with the answers, or just a gimmick Divine Spirit/Inner Fire.

I disagree with needing luck to beat Heroic. OK, in some sense you do, in that you're not going to win with bad luck. But I don't think you need great luck. For most of these bosses, it only took 1-2 tries to win with the last deck I tried, and I only tried ~2-3-ish decks, so I'm sure much higher winrates are possible.

I'd say Heroic battles require a bit more luck in the sense that you need to have playable cards early on. In typical Hearthstone matches, you might get away with not playing anything until turn 3, and your opponent might be in the same boat. In Heroic, the game is probably already decided by that point.

[Jorbles]

Let's talk cards we like from Naxx so far:

So far I absolutely love Nerubian Egg and use it in a lot of different decks. Shaman can Reincarnate it now, Warlock can eat it with a Void Terror, use it as a Power Overwhelming target, Paladin has Blessings to activate it, Druid can Mark it. Plus it activates with many Neutrals that give Taunt or Buff in some way. It's great to discourage AOE spells even when it just sits out there doing nothing. Though it's pretty vulnerable to Silence, even if it ends up silenced it's still a 2 drop that ate a Silence. I think it's my favourite and one of the most versatile cards in the set.

I've only had Spectral Knights for a couple days, but they seem really strong. The problem with a Faerie Dragon is that even when you play it, the card still gets blown up by almost any 2 drop and almost every weapon. So it doesn't matter if a hero power or spell isn't used on it. Spectral Knights are so beefy that they can actually be quite problematic to deal with without spells. I can't think of any single cards that can immediately remove them from the game from an otherwise empty board. (Edit: actually big chargers can, but if you're playing a King Krush or an Al-Akir are you going to be hitting a Spectral Knight?)

Loatheb is a really good 5 drop that helps you take game tempo. It really helps you develop your board because you know your opponent is going to struggle to play any non-minion based cards next turn. Letting you drop a 5/5 and plan for favourable trades next turn counting on your opponent to not be able to play more than a single spell next turn (and honestly usually it's better to save that spell and play minions). Plus he breaks combos up letting you interrupt anything you see about to start next turn that you can't immediately deal with.

So far these are my favourite Naxx cards, I have found limited use for Haunted Creeper and Poison Seeds, but I don't love them like I love the above cards. I feel like Reincarnate has a lot of versatility and potential, but I haven't really been playing Shaman much lately so I'll have to find out later if I like it or not.

[Kirian]

Jeez... I should *not* be having this much trouble with a non-heroic boss.  WTF Grobbulus?

[EgorK]

I would say that my undertakers in zoo freaks the damn out of my opponents. Seems like a good addition

[KingZog3]

I would say that my undertakers in zoo freaks the damn out of my opponents. Seems like a good addition

Yeah, my opponent had a 4/5 undertaker no problem with a Nax zoo deck. between eggs, Haunted Creepers and harvest Golems, it's not hard to get a couple buffs on them.

[markusin]

Speaking of Naxxramas cards, how about that Nerub'ar Weblord?

Complains about its poor theme aside, the card is here and we might as well live with it. I've included one in a Hunter deck I'm using right now, and I've noticed that it can be fairly disruptive. Against Warlock, it makes it harder for Zoo to buff that egg with Abusive Sergeant or DID and it can delay Doomguard and Defender of Argus, while Handlock has delayed Twilight Drake and Taunt givers. I played a game where the Warlock had to attack the Weblord instead of Highmane in order to drop Jaraxxus and get to 15 health from 1 health (hey, the Warlock hand only 8 mana and I forgot he still had the coin).  I don't remember if my Highmane would have died instead, but if so that Weblord won me the game (I still managed to burst down Jaraxxus next turn thanks to lucky topdeck).

A notable disruption is against Injured Blademaster, a popular card for Priest and sometimes seen in Shaman decks. not having to worry about Blademaster->Circle of Healing or Blademaster->Ancestral Healing on turn 3 is pretty big.

It's too bad there aren't that many 9 mana legendaries with Battlecries to block, but there is Alexstrasa. It can delay Leeroy and Black Knight as well, so there is that to consider.

It seems pretty weak in Arena though, where you might want to take a bunch of high-powered battlecry minions yourself as the draft progresses. It's also ineffective against all those "choose one" Druid minions.

Oh yeah, and very few Naxx cards themselves have battlecry. If anything, it shifts the game more towards Naxx compositions.

[Titandrake]

Jeez... I should *not* be having this much trouble with a non-heroic boss.  WTF Grobbulus?

The non-heroic bosses this week are significantly harder - normally I pick a random deck to beat them with (which in practice is either my common-only druid or a herp derp aggro warrior), but this week I actually had to think about what deck to use. It doesn't help that Grobbulus has > 2 copies of his special card Mutating Injection.

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

[Jorbles]

Jeez... I should *not* be having this much trouble with a non-heroic boss.  WTF Grobbulus?

The non-heroic bosses this week are significantly harder - normally I pick a random deck to beat them with (which in practice is either my common-only druid or a herp derp aggro warrior), but this week I actually had to think about what deck to use. It doesn't help that Grobbulus has > 2 copies of his special card Mutating Injection.

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

I hadn't thought about its Druid interactions, but those sound really strong. I usually play Watcher Druid, but I think a Weblord Druid might be worth trying out. I've got most of the Choose cards for Druid that Weblord nicely avoids interacting with.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

It doesn't really hurt you both equally because it's possible that it is alive for more of his turns than yours but not vice versa. This works well with the 2/2 Mana Wraith, since it's easy to trade it when you want the effect to go away. While at 1/4 it's a bit harder to do with Weblord, it at least can't ever be active for more of your turns than his.

Also, you can choose when you play it.

The big problem I have with it is that it only has 1 attack, which makes it really hard to actually kill anything with it. So I think it's among the bottom 3 neutral common 2-drops in arena (with Tidehunter and Creeper).

[markusin]

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

It doesn't really hurt you both equally because it's possible that it is alive for more of his turns than yours but not vice versa. This works well with the 2/2 Mana Wraith, since it's easy to trade it when you want the effect to go away. While at 1/4 it's a bit harder to do with Weblord, it at least can't ever be active for more of your turns than his.

Also, you can choose when you play it.

The big problem I have with it is that it only has 1 attack, which makes it really hard to actually kill anything with it. So I think it's among the bottom 3 neutral common 2-drops in arena (with Tidehunter and Creeper).

Now I'm inspired to swap that Weblord for Mana Wraith. Hunter still has an unaffected Animal Companion and UtH. Have no idea if it will work out well at all, but anything that slows the early game to get to the mid game seems worth investigating for Hunter. Really, I'm just looking for a decent 2 drop that I'm not looking to save for a combo later and which doesn't have just 1 health.

[KingZog3]

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

It doesn't really hurt you both equally because it's possible that it is alive for more of his turns than yours but not vice versa. This works well with the 2/2 Mana Wraith, since it's easy to trade it when you want the effect to go away. While at 1/4 it's a bit harder to do with Weblord, it at least can't ever be active for more of your turns than his.

Also, you can choose when you play it.

The big problem I have with it is that it only has 1 attack, which makes it really hard to actually kill anything with it. So I think it's among the bottom 3 neutral common 2-drops in arena (with Tidehunter and Creeper).

Now I'm inspired to swap that Weblord for Mana Wraith. Hunter still has an unaffected Animal Companion and UtH. Have no idea if it will work out well at all, but anything that slows the early game to get to the mid game seems worth investigating for Hunter. Really, I'm just looking for a decent 2 drop that I'm not looking to save for a combo later and which doesn't have just 1 health.

Need a 2 drop? Why not Zoidberg?

[EgorK]

Edit: I've been meaning to try out Weblord, but I haven't found a good reason to pick it arena. By the time I see it, I usually have some battlecry minions already, and I can't justify a 1/4 that hurts both of us equally. Seems useful in Druid decks though - it disrupts your own taunt givers if you're playing Watcher Druid, but your Ancients are fine, Keeper is fine, Druid of the Claw is fine, and it doesn't hit minions with Deathrattles.

It doesn't really hurt you both equally because it's possible that it is alive for more of his turns than yours but not vice versa. This works well with the 2/2 Mana Wraith, since it's easy to trade it when you want the effect to go away. While at 1/4 it's a bit harder to do with Weblord, it at least can't ever be active for more of your turns than his.

Also, you can choose when you play it.

The big problem I have with it is that it only has 1 attack, which makes it really hard to actually kill anything with it. So I think it's among the bottom 3 neutral common 2-drops in arena (with Tidehunter and Creeper).

Now I'm inspired to swap that Weblord for Mana Wraith. Hunter still has an unaffected Animal Companion and UtH. Have no idea if it will work out well at all, but anything that slows the early game to get to the mid game seems worth investigating for Hunter. Really, I'm just looking for a decent 2 drop that I'm not looking to save for a combo later and which doesn't have just 1 health.

Need a 2 drop? Why not Zoidberg?

I thought Zoidberg is one drop in this game

[Jorbles]

[Jorbles]

That really needs to have the Hungry Crab's face replace Zoidberg's but I don't have photoshop on this computer.