The first wing of Hearthstone‘s new solo adventure, Blackrock Mountain, is now available. Here’s how to burn through it and earn those new cards!
Wing 1: Blackrock Depths
The first wing consists of three bosses. Defeating all of them will net you a neutral legendary: Emperor Thaurissan.
The Grim Guzzler
Your first challenge is The Grim Guzzler, who leads a deck full of dwarves. His hero power is Pile On, which costs 0 mana and puts a random minion from both decks onto the field. Pretty easy to abuse? You betcha.
This hero power will actually work in your favor most of the time, since you’ll usually get the first attack with whatever pops out. Just make sure you’re running a deck with some pretty meaty minions, to make sure you’re getting some value out of his hero power, and not a bunch of one drops.
One thing you do need to worry about is Dark Iron Bouncer, a 4/8 for 6 mana that “Always wins Brawls.” It can be a real pain in the ass, and a big tempo swing, for him to land one of these for free, then play a Brawl right after. There’s not a lot you can do to play around this though, as a lot of your minions will be played for you each turn. Just utilize some caution in overplaying your hand, and know that there might be a Brawl around the corner.
Winning will earn you two copies of Grim Patron.
Dark Iron Arena
Unlike the previous matchup, this boss’s hero power is entirely predictable, and thus, a lot easier to play around. All it does is summon a 1/1 with taunt for 1 mana, not too bad, eh?
His deck runs a little differently though, playing a string of legendary minions. Luckily, pretty much none of them have any sort of synergy with each other, so as long as your deck can deal with minion threats one at a time, you’ll be fine.
Defeating the Arena will get you two copies of Gang Up.
Emperor Thaurissan
Thaurissan starts off the game with his wife Moira, a 1/3 minion, already on the field. Moira never attacks other minions unless they have taunt, and more importantly, prevents Thaurissan from unleashing his hero power (30 damage to the face!). So basically, don’t play any taunt minions!
Also avoid any mass removal of course, as well as anything with random damage, like Knife Juggler. Playing a Priest deck will make it much easier to keep Moira alive.
Defeating him earns you two copies of Resurrect, and finishing the wing will earn you Emperor Thaurissan himself.
Class Challenges
Hunter
You’re running a pretty standard beast deck against the Grim Guzzler again (see above for an explanation on his hero power). There’s really no trick to this one. Just play your curve, and hope you get a free King Krush.
Winning will get you two of the Hunter card, Quick Shot.
Mage
A rematch with the Dark Iron Arena awaits you here, except now you’ll be running a Mage deck that’s entirely Unstable Portals. Let the RNG be with you. Again, there’s no big trick to defeating this one. Just use your hero power to deal with his free 1/1 minions, and hope you get some good portals.
Win, and you’ll get two copies of the Mage card, Dragon’s Breath.
Heroic Mode
Heroic Mode pits you against the same three decks you faced in the first wing, but with the odds heavily stacked in your opponents’ favor.
The Grim Guzzler
The new version of this deck now puts two minions from his deck onto the field, but still only one of yours. He also starts the game with 15 armor.
To defeat him, put a deck together that’s heavy on beefy minions (that don’t rely on Battlecry abilities, they won’t activate), and spot removal. I went with Druid due to its good mix of both of these things, as well as the ability to Innvervate into removal if I need to deal with something quickly.
Here’s the decklist I used to beat him. I’m sure you can figure out a way to better optimize it, but it worked for me!
Dark Iron Arena
Your second visit to the Dark Iron Arena will pit you against the same deck… but he starts off with 4 mana! He also starts the game with 15 armor.
This is very difficult to deal with right off the bat, and it snowballs quickly. I had a lot of trouble working in enough removal for all of his legendaries, so I decided to go with Mage, due to the class’s flexibility in dealing with a bunch of threats at once.
I should add that I was missing a few cards that I really wanted in this deck (namely, a second copy of Blizzard and two Doomsayers), but this version still got the job done in two tries!
Emperor Thaurissan
Emperor Thaurissan v.2.0 puts a 3/1 on the field at the start of the battle, instead of a 1/3. This makes it way more difficult to keep her alive.
The three damage a turn to your face will also add up very quickly, and it doesn’t help that Thaurissan’s deck is already pretty aggressive. To deal with this, I used Priest again, but focused on cards that could help me deal with his aggro, and also give me options if Moira was about to do.
Silences are the best way to deal with Unstable Ghoul and Abomination, whose board damage will kill Moira, but you can also use Crazed Alchemist and Power Word: Shield in a pinch. Alchemist in general is a really strong card in this match-up, as he’ll allow you to bring Moira’s damage down to 1 a turn, which is a lot more manageable.
Here’s the deck list:
