Curse of Naxxramas LP, Part 1: Beetles and Spiders!

Hearthstone: Curse of Naxxramas, Part 1: The Arachnid Quarter

Okay, so people in the internet who know about Blizzard's game release schedules (speaking of which, World of Warcraft is launching its sixth expansion, Legion, which is cool since we can get Illidan hopefully properly handled this time around) and mechanics have all basically said that the Grand Tournament isn't until 24 August... which is like, basically almost the entire month away. I've got little more than 800 gold, and while that could easily translate to eight Grand Tournament booster packs... it's not a certainity that I'll get things that are playable. Whereas the prize cards from the Adventure Modes? They certainly are. I could've gone with Blackrock Mountain and the popular (though admittedly irritating) Grim Patron deck, or get Emperor Thaurissan... both seeing pretty great use. Gang Up and Resurrect, not so much, but the appealing ones are certainly those two... but I'm not that good with Warrior decks, missing a lot of the cards that'll make a Patron deck good, so that's for another day.

Naxxramas' first quarter, on the other hand, gains me the great Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg cards, low-cost minions that can be useful in many situations. Maexxna is also a decent, if unspectacular, legendary, so that's three cards I'll use as opposed to one, maybe two from Blackrock Mountain. Of course I do plan to get all the stuff from Adventure Mode... eventually.

So with a heavy heart I look at the gold I've farmed, and forked over seven hundred to unlock the first quarter of Kel'Thuzad's floating Necropolis.

A skeleton key is generated and unlocks the first leg of my adventure through Naxxramas, the Arachnid Quarter -- with a nice spiderweb effect as it does so. Kel'Thuzad pops up to inform me that "Anub'Rekhan is one of my finest spiderlords" and wishes me luck. Even though Anub'Rekhan is a Crypt Lord which is more of a heavily-armoured monster beetle than a spider. But oh well.

Anub'Rekhan

Anub'Rekhan, in normal mode, is relatively basic. His eck features some of the then-brand-new Naxxramas cards like the Stoneskin Gargoyle and the Deathlord.  His hero power summons a 3/1 Nerubian for 2 mana, which isn't that overpowering, to be honest. I do like how the loading gag quotes for the Naxxramas level is different than the normal stuff like Coralling Murlocs or whatever. As I pick a Mage deck and start the battle, Anub'Rekhan welcomes me to his parlor. "It speaks!" Anub'Rekhan says with wonder whenever I emote at him.

Anub'Rekhan goes all "Closer now, tasty morsels" as he summons Nerubians and a boss-exclusive uncollectible minion, the Deathcharger, which deals 3 damage to Anub'Rekhan upon dying... yeah, dude's the first boss so I guess they're going to make it somewhat easier. The Nerubians are especially less of a threat to a Mage thanks to having access to the Fireblast hero power and stuff like Arcane Explosion that clears a boardfull of Nerubians in one shot. Anub'Rekhan's signature card seems to be the uncollectible Locust Swarm, based on the Crypt Lord's ultimate skill in good ol' Warcraft III, which deals 3 damage to all my minions while restoring 3 health to Anub'Rekhan himself.

None of his tricks are really that overpowering, though, and especially with the aid of board wipes and self-harming minions like the Deathlord and the Deathcharger, Anub'Rekhan falls pretty easily to my mage deck without me even losing a single drop of health. Anub'Rekhan shatters to an Archmage with a hilarious hammy cry of "WHYYYY OH WHYYYYY".

Kel'Thuzad shows up to be surprised before regaining his composure and telling me that I can never defeat the Grand Widow. I savour my victory and claim the first of the reward cards in Naxxramas: the Haunted Creeper, infamous for being one of the better 2-drops in the game and being relatively sticky on the board thanks to splitting into two 1/1's if its deathrattle is triggered. I pause briefly to insert the Creeper into some of my decks, especially my Hunter one which will work better thanks to the Beast synergy, then return to Naxxramas.

Grand Widow Faerlina

"Faerlina is training acolytes to worship me. Her job is very important do not disturb her." Kel'Thuzad says. Jeez, Hearthstone!Kel'Thuzad is truly a big funny ham, isn't he? Faerlina, despite her name, is not a giant black widow spider but rather a not-unpleasant-looking human (well, maybe a well-preserved undead?) woman with a cool set of yellow-purple armour. She does look quite cute, I must say. Unlike Anub'Rekhan's relatively unthreatening hero power, Faerlina's Rain of Fire will fire a missile for each card in my hand. It's not really that big of a deal, honestly, just a free spell, but it's the first of the boss fights that require some... planning. I'll need to easily dump huge parts of my hand, so I went with Rogue and its many cheap spells.

Faerlina declares that her acolytes serve her without question -- not that big of a deal, considering Acolytes are like the lowest rung in Undead society -- while I mulligan for cheap spells. She only laughs maniacally whenever I emote, which isn't quite that fun. Thankfully she also uses the self-harming Deathcharger, but I quickly discover that she really likes to hit that Hero Power button and you can't dump all the cards you get within the first two turns, so I took a fair amount of damage.

Faerlina uses a unique card, the Necroknight (with a respectable stat of 5/6), with a Deathrattle of destroying the minions next to it as well. Good job, Faerlina, for making my job of slaying you that much easier! Though the Necroknight at least kind of forces me to pop the Nerubian Eggs that hang out around next to it, so it isn't quite that horrible. Faerlina also summons these 1/4 Worshippers (who's all like THE WIDOW EMBRACES ME) and after declaring that they will "Slay them in the master's name", gains 1 attack temporarily to whack me in the face. Killing the Worshippers causes Faerlina to be pissed off and be all "you have failed!"

While the Worshippers do stack their damage, I ignore them in favour of going straight for the face. Other than her special cards, Faerlina plays similarly to a Warrior, using stuff like Acolyte of Pain and Inner Rage and Rampage to make use of damaged minions. It was a bit closer than Anub'Rekhan's fight mostly due to an unfortunate series of draws that gave me a couple of unusable 5-drops, but after flooding my board with a couple of cheap minions and holding the ground against her unfairly-high-stat ones, I manage to whack Faerlina enough times with a Tinker-enhanced-dagger and blow her up.

"The master will avenge me!" Faerlina cries, trying to get some semblance of personality beyond crazy-spider-cult-lady, and Kel'Thuzad just don't give no fucks. "Faerlina means nothing." Kel'Thuzad says, and is confident that the Spider Queen will kill me. The card I get from this boss fight is the Nerub'ar Weblord, which is a two-drop with 1/4, which is decent stats though not really that great, and the effect of causing minions with Battlecry to cost 2 more. The Naxxramas expansion focuses more on Deathrattle, but most of my decks have a couple of minions with Battlecry so I don't really see myself using the Nerub'ar too much.

Maexxna

"MAEXXNA IS A GIANT SPIDER MUOAHAHAHAHA" Kel'Thuzad proclaims. Kel'Thuzad is certainly having the time of his life in Hearthstone. Also, apparently Maexxna is pronounced Ma-ix-nah instead of Mah-ekhs-na like how I always did mentally. The giant spider queen Maexxna is the final boss of the Arachnid Quarter, apparently outranking the Crypt Lords and, um, the so-called Grand Widow despite not being a Nerubian herself. Maexxna's hero power is a three-mana that basically Saps one of my minions.

Ideally, a deck filled with Battlecry minions would be good -- counter-intuitive with my recent reward of the Nerub'ar Weblord -- but I don't really have a deck that's specifically Battlecry oriented, so I picked my Paladin deck at a whim. The battle begins and Kel'Thuzad claims that her poison will make my death 'mostly' painless.

My Paladin deck doesn't really have that many Battlecry minions, though it has its share. And the ability to spam Silver Hand Recruits probably will help out in making targets I wouldn't mind being removed from the board. Maexxna uses, surprise, the Haunted Creeper and Webspinner, plus Emperor Cobra (which isn't a spider, but is poisonous and shares Card!Maexxna's effects) as well as the Shade of Naxxramas card. She also uses a special spell 'Necrotic Poison' which is a two-mana version of Assassinate. Yeah, these Raid bosses don't play fair, do they?

Kel'Thuzad makes a shitty joke about how a player who has had his minion webbed is called 'doomed', and I overestimated Maexxna's usage of her webs. Also, whoever programmed her AI at least made her prioritize to send back Deathrattle minions compared to Battlecry minions, making my plan to spam Battlecries rather poorly thought-out. After some poor play choices I decided to blow myself up and return with my Rogue deck... which is fast-paced enough to allow me to make good control choices and kind of flood the deck with Defias Scrublords Ringleaders and focus most of my attacks on Maexxna's face instead of trying to control her unfairly-priced minions.

"SEA GIANT?! Maexxna that was not on my approved card list!" Oh, Kel'Thuzad, you funny fucker. 

For the giant spider's credit, the Sea Giant is a smart play, though, considering how both Maexxna and I are flooding the board with cards like Haunted Creeper and Defias Ringleaders. Not very Naxxramas-y, but it's a good play. I kill Maexxna with a Haunted Creeper while my Rogue suffers like only four damage. Kel'Thuzad does some generic villain rant, while I claim my prize -- the Nerubian Egg, a two-mana 0/2 minion with the Deathrattle of summoning a 4/4 Nerubian. It is definitely one of the funner cards to play with and one I'm itching to get my hands on for a while. I'm not quite sure which ones of my existing decks it can fit in.

For clearing the Arachnid Quarter, I receive Maexxna in card form. "You think that card will help you? You are sorely mistaken!" Kel'Thuzad snarks, and Maexxna isn't quite that impressive. A six-drop with 2/8 and the effect of instant-killing any minion she damages, Maexxna does look awesome... just not as much as she initially seems like because she'll have to trade with the enemy and only have eight health to do it. She'll work well in my Priest deck that can heal her, or my Paladin deck with its Divine Shield-giving Argent dudes... but hey, I get another Legendary! I'm not complaining.

Defeating Maexxna unlocks the Class Challenges for Druid and Rogue, which I'll do in a later date for their class-specific rewards. There's also the Heroic Mode version of the three boss fights which really doesn't net me much beyond, y'know, pride. I guess the next playthrough will be of the class challenges, eh?