Curse of Naxxramas LP, Part 2: More Spiders!

This time around, I tackle the two Class Challenges for the first Quarter of Curse of Naxxramas. Basically in these Adventure Modes, every time you clear a wing, you get two class challenges where you fight against the bosses (who I think have slightly modified decks) with a pre-made deck. It's particularly great for me, because I don't really have any good Druid cards or played much with the deck I have. And it's kind of good fun to see how some of these Naxxramas cards I don't own yet actually work.

Arachnid Quarter: Druid Challenge

The Druid class challenge has me fight against Grand Widow Faerlina once more, with a pre-made deck that consists of general Druid buffing cards, a bunch of 'sticky' minions like Haunted Creeper and Echoing Ooze (a sneak preview for something I get later in this Adventure!), Nerubian Egg and several cards that work well with it (Defender of Argus, Mark of Nature), Hogger of all things, plus, uh, like a shit-ton of Stoneskin Gargoyles. Which is kind of a bad card.

I mean, I guess the idea is to buff the Gargoyles and have them help clear the board before healing themselves next turn, but buffing 1/4's into 2/5's isn't honestly that impressive. Faerlina still uses her original deck, though now that I'm coming in with an unfamiliar deck her swarm of boss-exclusive Worshippers, Necroknights and Deathchargers are a bit more problematic since I can't really rely on my minions to clear them in time. Swipe is at least decent for an AOE damage spell, and I guess Poison Seeds kind of work in my favour because none of my minions, Hogger and spawned Nerubians aside, are espcially valuable.

Faerlina narrowly won on my first attempt after I drew several high-cost cards which allowed her to spam Rain of Fire with impunity, and buff her own minions with stuff like Inner Rage and Rampage. I also attribute it to my lack of experience in playing as a Druid. My second attempt involved me going for her face more often than not instead of trying to establish board control with shitty minions, and using Poison Seeds and Swipe as nukes if the board ended up being too crowded with her more powerful minions. It honestly was more difficult due to my shitty Gargoyle infestation more than anything, and once I managed to get a couple of Nerubians and Keeper of the Groves on my side of the board, Faerlina gives up the ghost a second time.

The reward from this challenge is the Druid class card Poison Seeds, which kills the entire board and replaces the minions killed with 2/2 Treants. It's useful in this particular deck thanks to triggering the Deathrattles of the Nerubian Eggs and Haunted Creepers, and replacing the rather m'eh 1-attack Gargoyles and Haunted Creepers with more sizable 2-Attacks to buff. And I guess it can be useful in Constructed play if you're running stuff like Imp Master (which I don't) but I don't know if my current Druid deck (which relies on me stalling out before my stronger minions like Druid of the Fang, Ysera and Ironbark Protector drops down, gets buffed, and ends the game) could use this card.

Arachnid Quarter: Rogue Challenge

In the Rogue challenge, I face off against Maexxna once more. And I get a pretty decent Rogue deck that basically uses the same strategy I used against the original Maexxna challenge -- relying on turning Maexxna's hero power against her. Granted Maexxna isn't that stupid to spam her hero power every turn, and sometimes she doesn't knock back a Battlecry minion, but the sheer amount of Battlecry minions in my deck kind of works a lot in my favour. Not to mention the Anub'ar Ambusher cards in this deck, normally relatively situational cards, are especially useful in this Battlecry-heavy deck.

Maexxna uses basically the same Haunted Creeper dominated deck that she does in her original play, but my deck? It's got like four Echoing Oozes in it, which I spammed like hell in the early game. The SI:7 Agent (a card I don't have yet) in it is also pretty cool to spam. There's a Tinkmaster Overspark in it, which transformed one of my Oozes into a Devilsaur, which is cool. Novice Engineer, Defender of Argus, Razorfen Hunter... this deck is chock-full of Battlecry minions. And honestly Maexxna isn't even that hard even in normal mode.

I basically spammed face hits, stopping only to deal with the odd threatening minion or two like the Shade of Naxxramas or Dire Wolf Alpha, and eaily burned Maexxna down a second time. For my troubles I get the Anub'ar Ambusher, which I honestly don't think I'll be using much, if at all.

So that's it for the first Quarter. I don't see myself unlocking the second quarter until after I get some Grand Tournament expansion cards, so yeah.