Suck it! Suck it! Suck it! After a whole week of defeats facing Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad, I finally made it! Huge, huge thanks to Amaz and his mage deck for defeating Sapphiron as well as Vernitrax's budget priest deck posted on Hearthpwn.com. Let's start from the beginning, however.
In hopes of keeping up to par with the Hearthstone release, I purchased the Frostwyrm Lair with my credit card to avoid having to play endless hours for gold gathering and thus publishing this review on a "fresh" Wednesday evening when the Frostwyrm Lair was still a novelty. Here I sit 1 week later, teary-eyed, as I have at long last defeated Kel'Thuzad. Sapphiron, as it turns out, was not the harder of the two.
What can I say? I had an easy time in normal mode. Sapphiron's terrible Hero Power was severely attenuated by that Frozen Champion minion laying on my side of the board. Any minions adjacent to it were immune to Sapphiron's minion-clearing spell. All I did was limit two minions at a time and I was set. My mage did the trick.
Kel'Thuzad was a tad more complex, but still, no big deal. His "cheating" was somewhat to be expected due to the nature of the character. Once you blow out his armor he ends your turn no matter what. Make sure you laid out all of your moves in the turn when you drop his armor. Or, you can wait until turn 11 when he strikes the End Turn button with lightning and whines about it being his turn (although I have seen him do this a turn or two earlier). His Hero Power then switches from Frost Blast to Chains, which takes control of one of your minions (supposedly randomly). Nevertheless, a few tweaks here and there and I believe a modified warrior did the trick. You'll have to forgive my uncertainty, but it really feels like forever since the innocence of pre-Heroic mode and don't quite remember which hero I used.
The paladin challenge was uneventful. Nothing of note, except those Echoing Ooze minions are way cool.
Now the headache begins. Heroic Sapphiron is a really neat challenge—until your 20th try or so. It takes a
very specific and well thought out deck to defeat him. The only difference between normal and Heroic Sapphiron is that pesky little Frozen Champion. Now, there is no way to preserve any minions for two turns. Charge and deathrattles only. Many claimed a zoo deck would do the trick, others claimed an endless flurry of secret spells would weigh heavily in the game. The fact that I lacked one or two (literally) hunter cards left that hero out of the question. I tried a few times with paladin, but without Leeroy Jenkins, it was useless. In fact, every research I made online pointed to Leeroy Jenkins, but I didn't have enough dust to craft him. In the end, I publicly thank Amaz for showing the way. At the expense of Harrison Jones, I crafted Myself a Blizzard and a Pyroblast cards. Sorry Doctor Jones, no time for love!
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| This was a great hand on the first five turns. Sadly, it led to nothing. |
I then fell into a spiral of self-doubt and questioning. My own decks didn't work against Sapphiron, why would I be able to come up with something against Kel'Thuzad? So I began searching, and the most improbable of all decks did it - but not without trying it out around 20 times before victory. I even made .gifs to share with you guys, such is the thrill I feel.
The only reason I used this priest deck is because I saw it in action in some YouTube video, otherwise I wouldn't have believed in it. A ridiculously low-budget shaman deck was also a close second (though never in a million years will I know how to play with shaman). The modified Vernitax deck is by far the best I've seen against Kel'Thuzad (unless you go for a really expensive paladin).
There were many, many times where I came close to defeating either bosses. Comically so, where it would be pure cheap tactics on behalf of (especially) Kel'Thuzad. One such occasion was that out of four minions, he stole my 32/32 Deathlord when Kel'Thuzad himself was at 31 and had no taunts on the board. It was too much. It became clear it was going to take some serious luck or many weeks of gaining gold and buying decks to craft cards.
Another droll event was when I had Sapphiron on his knees; there I was, with a full, healthy Thaddius, and
two (read it again,
two) Blessed Champion cards on my hand. Do the math: 11x2 = 22. 22x2 = 44. So what did I do? At 2 AM after 15 or so different decks, my math goes like 11x2 = 22. 22x2 = 33. It was turn 10, Sapphiron was at 40 health and I just said 'oh fuck it' and attacked a minion. Fail.
Yes, it was a perilous journey, where I figured I might as well review this expansion without completing it, but that would go against the Fanboys Anonymous code. Is there such a code? There should be.
Here is my final verdict on Curse of Naxxramas -
Awesome!
I loved the new cards and the new challenges presented. The boss gimmicks were something that forced people to recreate their attack and defense patterns as opposed to just using their best decks. It became a whole new game after Naxxramas.
Speaking of bosses, my favorite was Loatheb in Heroic. It seemed so easy, but it was a very deceitful challenge. Still, watching your minions buffed up like that was oh so sweet. My least favorite was Kel'Thuzad, for obvious reasons. More than difficult, it was like Blizzard made him deliberately difficult at the programming level, as if there was a handicap where he practically
always, 99 times out of 100 had the proper spells to neutralize your moves. Still, if you think about it, that's where the challenge lies—defeating not only a powerful boss, but a cheating boss as well.
I'm going to miss Curse of Naxxramas. I really wanted a challenge way back at the Arachnid Quarter, and how I got one. I haven't had his much trouble with bosses since Kintaro and Shao Kahn! The last two bosses were the only hair-pulling moment I encountered, and the rest was quite fun. If you're reading this and haven't managed yet, don't give up! I've seen it done, I've done it and so can you. With fairly basic decks too!
I wonder what will be next for Hearthstone? What WoW dungeon or instance will be brought over to this card game? Comment below and see you next time! Thanks for following!
