Curse of Naxxramas, Wing 2: The Plague Quarter
Firstly, an apology -- real life has been a bitch and I'm having trouble keeping my main blog up, so this one's probably going to have very intermittent updates when I do talk about Warcraft's characters and whatnot. Just kind of sorry about it, but real life really takes priority.
I have continued and completed the second wing of Curse of Naxxramas -- I've splurged and purchased all four wings, so let's just kind of talk about what this adventure mode has to offer.
Noth the Plaguebringer
The first challenge in the Plague Quater is Noth the Plaguebringer, in which Kel'Thuzad, bless his hamminess, claims that "NOTH-ing can defeat Noth!" Well, thank you for that, pun-master Kel'Thuzad. Noth is a human undead that backstory tells me is a Dalaran mage called into service by Kel'Thuzad (who himself used to be an archmage of Dalaran) but began second-guessing the Lich King and ends up being turned into a faithful servant instead.
Noth goes all "another soul for my collection!" and upon being taunted responds with "die, trespasser!" Quite generic, honestly. Noth's hero power is passive -- basically freely summoning a 1/1 Skeleton any time one of my minions die. It's something that really suits the whole Undead Scourge theme, though not one that's particularly dangerous since it's, y'know, a 1/1. Noth also has a special 'Skeletal Smith' minion, a 3-drop 4/3 that will destroy the enemy's minion. Shame I went in against Noth with my favourite deck, a Mage, and Mages generally don't use weapons. Like, at all.
In retrospect I really should've gone in with a control deck with larger minions instead of the many small Mech minions in my Mage deck, but on the other hand the Mage's Fireblast is really good to clear Noth's Skeletons. He goes all "Rise, my soldiers, rise and fight once more!" when he revives those Skeletons, but they honestly aren't even worth killing most times.
And Noth's deck is... extremely underwhelming, really. He's apparently got a special spell card 'Plague' that will destroy all non-Skeleton minions but he never drew it during my fight against him, and he plays an odd deck with lots of Mage Secrets and minions that don't exactly synergize well with each other, and falls without much affair since his Unstable Ghoul and Abominations' "deal 1 damage to all minions" is really bad when paired up with a board full of 1/1's on his side. Overall, as Kel'Thuzad claims -- "Poor Noth. This was just 'Noth' his day" -- Noth ends up being far, far easier than even Anub'Rekhan, who was intended to be the easiest boss.
Of course, Noth drops Stoneskin Gargoyle which is easily the worst card in the entirety of the Naxxramas expansion, so I can't exactly rejoice about that fact. The Gargoyle's honestly a cool concept, a minion that heals himself to full health at the end of every turn if not destroyed, but it's just such a shitty minion that you need really, really gimmicky decks to even make it work... and even then there are so many better options for gimmicky decks than the Gargoyle.
Heigan the Unclean
"Heigan sent me a message telling me that he promises not to kill you if you don't play any cards against him." Kel'Thuzad tells me. HE LIES.
The second boss in Plague Quater is the hilariously-named Heigan the Unclean, who uses the generic Necromaner model from Warcraft III that apparently made it into World of Warcraft. Heigan is the one who's responsible for concocting the plague that the Cult of the Damned spread all over Lordaeon. Heigan apparently had a unique boss fight in the WoW game that involved you 'dancing' around the battlefield, and this reflects in his one-mana-cost hero power that will deal two damage to the left-most minion. I went in with my Paladin deck, and being able to deal two damage to my minions for one mana is an absolutely cost-effective move. Coupled that with his one-mana 2/3-Charge Deathchargers, plus his many, many Voidcallers, makes him a really scary aggressive boss, and definitely a world harder than Noth. I'm just glad that like Noth, he didn't get to draw his special Mindpocalypse spell card.
Heigan plays a really nice Warlock deck with loads of cheap-but-powerful minions like the Deathcharger and Flame Imps, and likes to boost his Voidwalkers and Flame Imps with stuff like Demonfire and whatever. But the biggest threats are certainly the many Voidcallers he has in his deck -- definitely more than two -- which calls down powerful high-cost demons upon death which he seems to always have in his hand.
And he means business! He goes all "You think you're safe here?" and proceeds to spam his hero power whenever he can, telling my minions to "dance, fools!" while saying the most indifferent "I don't have time for this nonsense" when I try to threaten him.
In retrospect a deck with things like Nerubian Eggs or Haunted Creepers would be good since Heigan can help me trigger their beneficial deahrattles (Dreadsteed would be OP), but my Paladin deck has an abundance of minions with Divine Shield and a fair amount of burly 4-drops and 5-drops, so I had more problem with his Voidcaller swarms and Demonfire-buffed Voidwalkers more than anything. And a Warlock deck would be able to Sacrifical Pact his strongest demons with ease.
Overall it took a second try to beat Heigan after unlucky draws had me face off a trio of burly Voidcallers, a Doomguard and a Dread Infernal with nothing but a Murloc Knight, but he wasn't really hard once I figure out how to deal with his Voidcallers... i.e. ignore them and go straight for face as fast as I can, delaying the potential of Doomguards going for mine.
But Heigan goes down with the absolutely hilarious "I... should've taken a shower." Yeah, Unclean, you do that. Jeez I bet you reek of stinking flesh.
Kel'Thuzad is apparently "seething with anger. (Seething)" as I laugh at Heigan the Unclean's remarks, while I get Unstable Ghoul as a reward. Not terribly exciting -- it is definitely a great minion in some decks where it's favourable to damage your own minions, like Grim Patron/Frothing Berserker/Gurubashi Berserker decks, and is definitely a solid card... but not one that finds a niche in any of mine. Far better than the Gargoyle, though, and I'll take it.
Loatheb
"Just being near Loatheb causes your flesh to rot. So I recommend a melee class." No thanks, Kel'Thuzad, I'll go with Mage again.
The final boss in the Plague Quarter is Loatheb, the one-of-a-kind undead Bog Beast. Man, the Plague Quarter is really filled with gross things, yeah? There's Loatheb, the gross undead mushroom swamp monster, there's Heigan the freaking unclean, and Noth and his gross puns. "I. SEE. YOU." Loatheb declares as the fight begins... and he has seventy-five freaking health, more than twice of mine. His hero power is a buffed-up version of the Hunter's Steady Shot, dealing three damage. And he's got Sporeburst and Deathbloom, respectively an AoE spell and a 'damage a minion' spell that's obviosuly unfairly costed, and summons a Spore on his side of the field. These Spores will give all my minions +8 attack, the obvious way to get through his insane health without dying.
Of course, naturally his deck is stacked with Taunt minions like the (hilariously appropriate) Fen Creeper and Unstable Ghoul, plus Deathchargers and Dancing Swords to have cheap-cost powerful minions to deal with mine before I can pop the Spores. And even then I have to wait until I have at least two or three minions on the side of my board while trying to withstand Loatheb's barrage of attacks to the face. He goes all "you waste your breath", "you are mine now" and "the end is close" and for an undead walking mushroom seaweed thing he's really talkative.
It's really just a matter of surviving and picking off his minions until he drops the Spores and then buffing my minions up. It was a close one, but with the help of a Goblin Blastmage popping two Spores at once, I reduced Loatheb's health from around 40 to zero within two turns. Definitely a fun boss fight, though!
"You keep killing my minions. Stop it! Stop it right this minute!" Shut up, Kel'Thuzad. I'm going to get all these Naxx cards.
Unlike the sub-par Unstable Ghoul and the outright crappy Gargoyle, Loatheb drops two awesome cards. Sludge Belcher is basically going to replace all the 4 and 5 drop Taunt minions in all my decks. It's an awesome card, a 3/5 for 5 mana that drops a 1/2 Taunt upon death. It's not particularly strong, but definitely a great body for delaying tactics and has been absolutely annoying non-stop ever since my first day in Hearthtone. The real prize here is Loatheb himself, a legendary 5-mana 5/5 that causes enemy spells to cost 5 next turn. Loatheb definitely will replace Maexxna, since he's definitely a superior minion with a superior effect and a superior statline. He's one card that arguably can be placed with any deck with no ramifications, and I certainly look forward to using him.
Hey, class challenges!
Plague Quarter: Hunter Challenge
The Hunter challenge is unexpectedly fun. You face off against Loatheb with a Hunter deck filled with nothing but Webspinners, which is actually pretty good. Flooding the board with one-mana drops ensures that short of his AoE, Loatheb can't kill my little spiders in one turn, and upon death the Webspinners give me beasts. And while it's hit-and-miss, I had the fortune of obtaining motherfucking King Krush and by that point it's just a matter of stalling Loatheb's minions enough for me to drop King Krush next to a boardful of Webspinners, pop two Spores and one-shot Loatheb to death with my giant dinosaur.
Definitely a fun challenge, if a heavily RNG-dependent one. Obviously, I get the Webspinner which I'm pretty happy to own.
Plague Quarter: Mage Challenge
This pits me against Heigan with a Mage Secret deck... that's honestly pretty bad against Heigan since most of the lower-drops are susceptible of being one-shotted by Heigan's hero power, and Secret decks take quite some time to build up all the Secretkeepers and Ethereal Arcanists and whatnot, whereas Heigan himself plays pretty aggressively with his Voidcallers and whatnot. There is definitely some synergy with Mad Scientist and Baron Rivendare, the former summoning extra secrets and the Baron giving me the extra deathrattles needed with Sludge Belchers and Nerubian Eggs to help regain board control, but it's still an impractical deck to use against Heigan and I died twice before I manage to beat Heigan not with the Secret-combo cards but by stalling out with Ice Blocks while I build up a board full of Nerubians and Baine Bloodhoofs and whittle Heigan down.
Not a fun challenge, and the reward -- Duplicate -- isn't especially useful either. I mean, it's not bad, but I don't particularly like playing with secrets. Effigy and Mirror Entity is far funner than Duplicate anyway.
That's about it for the Plague Quarter. Next up, I'm gonna fight a bunch of Death Knights.
