My Heroic Naxx Journey: Beating the Construct Quarter
The Construct Quarter opened on Tuesday, 12th
August, and within we were introduced to The shambling Abomination Pudge
Patchwerk; Silent Hill creature candidate, Grobbulus; Gluth, the plague-dog
that looks more ghoul than dog in Hearthstone; and Mr. Frankenstein on
steroids, Thaddius. If you’re eager to learn how I dispatched this round’s
damned beings and unwholesome inhabitants of the Construct Quarter on Heroic
difficulty, you’re invited to read on. If not, feel free to check out my
previous walkthrough here.
Reader’s advice: This is not a thorough
guide but a personal recount of the tactics and execution rationale used by me
in combating the Heroic variants of the Naxxramas’ bosses.
Click on images to enlarge
Ah Patchwerk, the pudge with a weapon but no
hand—quite the most fun I’ve hand building a deck against than I had with any
other Naxxramas boss. On normal difficulty this matchup invites creative plays
for which I eagerly sat by waiting to see the result; for example throwing
Acidic Swamp Ooze out and Mind Visioning his weapon into my hand, or playing
Coldlight Oracle and watching Patchwerk draw fatigue. However silly plays like
that these were rendered quite ineffective in Heroic mode, largely because the
Earth Mother had accidentally blessed the Hook with windfury.
Taking this into stride I switched over to a
cheap taunt variant of the Freeze Mage. Running the likes of Goldshire Footmen,
Shieldbearer, Mirror Images, and anything to nick the weapon off him, such as
the Bloodsail Corsair, and the ever so important Acidic Swamp Ooze, the game
became a frantic struggle to keep the taunts up, recycle them with Duplicate,
while stalling for time with Ice Barriers, and freezing spells and minions.
In my victory round I drew into Mana Wyrms,
Ice Lances, and Mirror Images really early on, and that allowed me to surge
ahead with great ease. As we drew into mid-game, I survived on Ice Barriers and
some fortuitous draws into Frost Elementals. When frozen avoid throwing taunts
on the board as it’ll only force the use of his hero ability which destroys a
minion of his choice. Play a slow game while keeping your cool (and keeping
Patchwerk even colder) and you’ll be able to swing for fat stacks when your
Mana Wrym had their fill of that tasty magic.
Word of advice though, it may be really
tempting to burst the pudge down with the Frost Bolt-Ice Lance combo but that’s
hardly recommended, unless of course you have lethal in sight.
Cards critical to this strategy are:
cheap taunts, any target freezing, secrets like Duplicate and Ice Barrier. If
you have Ice Block I’d recommend running it too—I didn’t.
Grobbulus’ hero ability is a mighty pain to
deal with. The ability to deal two damage each turn to all your minions means
many will die—but what do you say to death? Not today. I initially attempted an
enrage Warrior build but ‘not today’ turned out to be every 15 minutes instead.
And so, quite reluctantly I dusted and summoned the old trite and tired tactic from
my overused Priest arsenal, the Divine Spirit-Inner Fire wombo-combo party gimmick.
Grobbulus has a nifty trick that could lead
to a swift demise if not checked early on. Splitting his Echoing Oozes on which
he endows the Blessing of Kings produces two 5/6s which can be incredibly
difficult to remove. Have him apply it twice in one turn (which was what
happened to me on a couple of occasions) and you’re looking at two 9/10s, and
probably, the concede button too. So make sure you’re packing silences to
nullify the green grimy copy cats.
Win tactic, apply Divine Spirit-Inner Fire
wombo-combo to Deathlord/Mogu’shan Warden. Cards critical to this strategy are:
Silence, wombo-combo, Northshire Cleric (for early draws)
Gluth’s hero ability upgrade from normal to
heroic is probably the most drastic one in my opinion—going from reducing all
minions health to 1, to what is in fact, a free Equality each turn. However,
this did make my minion choices fairly straightforward. The game plan evolved—or
rather, devolved, into an almost classic Face Hunter set up. Hit him very hard
then load up the traps and set the hounds free when the board’s occupied with
Gluth’s cadaverish entourage.
Conventional Face Hunter decks are no good
on their own and tweaks were necessary to keeping this build viable; the
addition of Ironbeak Owls, and Acidic Swamp Oozes in particluar. Gluth carries Jaws,
his weapon of choice, and it increases in power with the death of each
deathrattle minion. Thus the surest way to stay alive is to always have your
answer in hand, and that is the ever-reliable AS Ooze. In addition, Gluth packs
a fine, well manned stable of Unstable Ghouls, and seeing that his hero ability
reduces all your minions’ health to 1 at the start of his turn, it’s easy to
see how this card can leave you in a world of hurt. The only time you’d want to
have the Ghoul proc its deathrattle is when you have his line of Zombie Chows
at 1hp after having them eat the Explosive Trap buffet (see second pic below).
Cards critical to this strategy are: your
run-of-the-mill face hunter fare with the exclusion of the weapon, freezing
trap, or Mukla, but with Ironbeak Owls, and Acidic Swamp Oozes instead.
The biggest challenge I faced with getting
past the tag team of Stalagg and Feugen—which, to be honest, wasn’t that big of
a challenge to overcome when compared to the shenanigans the other bosses threw
out. Keep a Mind Control Tech in there just in case things get a little antsy.
Cards critical to this strategy: Secrets,
attack and health modifiers, Aldo Peacekeepers, and Nerubian Eggs!
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