Curse of Naxxramus is the first expansion to the Hearthstone game. It is a solo adventure that came out a while ago, and I finally finished unlocking all the different wings. Players can unlock each wing by spending gold or real world currency. I chose to use gold.
The second boss in the Plague Quarter of Naxxramas is Heigan the Unclean. Players can unlock this boss by defeating Noth the Plaguebringer (the first boss in the Plague Quarter). It took some trial and error, but I managed to defeat Heigan. The screenshots you see in this blog were taken on June 13, 2015.
I think it took me five tries before I managed to defeat Heigan the Unclean. My first two tries were with my Mage Deck, and then with an altered Mage Deck. The next try was with my Rogue Deck. What eventually ended up working for me was my Priest Deck.
As you can see in the screenshot above, I have defeated all three bosses in the Arachnid Quarter, and the first boss of the Plague Quarter. Next up was Heigan the Unclean. Players have to defeat the bosses in order and cannot skip any.
Lich Kel’Thuzad: Heigan sent me a message telling me that he promises not to kill you if you don’t play any cards against him.
At first glance, this appears to be yet another one of Kel’Thuzad’s snarky little comments. You can’t win a match without playing at least some cards. This time, it turned out that Kel’Thuzad was actually giving the player a vague clue about Heigan’s special Hero Power.
The Boss Info for Heigan the Unclean says: Heigan has rigged the very walls and floors of Naxxramas with traps that he can trigger at will.
Heigan’s Hero Power is called “Eruption”. It only costs him 1 mana. Players have to spend 2 mana to use their Hero Power, no matter what deck they are using. This Hero Power can: Deal 2 damage to the left-most enemy minion.
Getting around this requires some strategy. If you have only one minion on the board, Heigan will hit that one. If you have more than one, he will use Eruption against the minion that is farthest to the player’s left. One option is to make sure that the minion you put farthest on the left has more than 2 health points. That way, when Haigan uses his Hero Power on the minion it will survive that attack.
My initial thought was that Heigan would immediately kill off any minion I had on the board (between his Hero Power and whatever minions he had). So, I tried to craft a Mage Deck that had a lot of direct attacks. The Mage Deck Hero Power is a Fireball that does 1 damage to a minion or the opposing Hero. Put in some cards like Fireball, Magic Missile, and Flamethrower, and use the Fireball Hero Power as often as possible. I also included minions that had Charge to ensure that I would get to use them at least once before they got killed off.
That strategy didn’t end up working at all for me. Next, I tried using my Rogue Deck, which also had a lot of cards that do direct damage. But, that didn’t work out for me either. Instead, it turned out that my Priest Deck was the best choice for me to use against Heigan the Unclean.
These are the cards that I have in my Priest Deck. As you can see, there’s nothing super special in there. I think the most difficult card to obtain in the whole deck could be either the Explosive Sheep (since I don’t see anyone else using it right now), or the Raging Worgen (which I crafted). My point is, a player can beat Heigan the Unclean with a deck that doesn’t have any of the high-powered cards that are difficult to obtain.
Here we go!
I’m not going to put in screenshots about every move in this match, but will note the more interesting ones. Heigan played a Deathcharger card. It has 2 attack and 3 health. I got a lucky hand to start with, and was able to kill the Deathcharger with a Shadow Word: Pain card. That card will: Destroy a minion with 3 or less attack. When the Deathcharger dies, it deals 3 damage to the Hero who played that card.
Heigan says: I will blow your MIND! when he plays the Mindpocalypse card. This card caused both players to draw 2 cards and gain a Mana Crystal. I got the Archmage card, which has Spell Damage +1, and the Shieldbearer card, which has Taunt.
Heigan has a Felguard card. The card says: Taunt. Battlecry: Destroy one of your Mana Crystals. This card has a blue gem, which means it is rare. It has 3 attack and 5 health. That’s a pretty big card to use in the third round of the match.
When Heigan uses his Hero Power – Eruption – he says: Dance, fools! As you can see, it only costs him 1 mana to use. I only have one minion on the board – so that automatically becomes the “left-most minion”. He killed my Annoy-o-tron.
Next, Heigan used Demonfire on his Voidwalker minion. Demonfire: Deal 2 damage to a minion. If its a friendly Demon, give it +2/+2 instead. He used both of his Demonfire cards on that Voidwalker, one right after the other
When he was done, his Voidwalker had 5 attack and 6 health. I used one of my Shadow Word: Death cards on it. Shadow Word Death: Destroy a minion with an Attack of 5 or more. This was probably the point in the game where I remembered to use my Hero Power to heal my Priest every chance I got.
Next, he used Voidcaller. It has: Deathrattle: Put a random Demon from your hand into the battlefield. If you kill this minion, another one from Heigan’s hand will instantly appear on the board. It gives him a “freebie” – he gets to put a minion down without using up mana.
Heigan used Soulfire. It says: Deal 4 damage. Discard a random card. He ended up losing his Bane of Doom card, which has a purple gem (and is an epic card). He used the Soulfire card to do 4 damage to my minion that was not the left-most minion.
He then played a Dread Infernal: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage to ALL other characters. This means he is about do damage to both my minions and his. That card will also cause 1 damage directly to me, AND 1 directly to himself.
BOOM!
I managed to get rid of his Voidcaller by using a Holy Smite card (which deals 2 damage to a target). Killing a Voidcaller card means that another Demon from Heign’s hand will be put on the board. It was… his other Voidcaller.
A bit later in the match, Heigan used his Hero Power (Eruption). I’ve only got 1 minion on the board, so it automatically becomes the “left-most minion”. Eruption deals 2 damage. As you can see, my minion has more than 2 health. So, it survived.
Doomguard is a card with 5 attack and 7 health. It says: Charge. Battlecry: Discard two random cards. It also has a blue gem, so it is rare card. Heigan only had one card left in his hand – and now has lost it due to the Doomguard card. He was now out of cards (except for the one he will get at the start of a turn).
I stole Heigan’s Doomguard with my Mind Control card. That card cost 10 mana, so I could not have used it any earlier in the game. Looking back, I might have had the opportunity to heal that card and make it last a bit longer (but I didn’t think of it at the time). As it was, I ended up using the Doomguard against his Voidwalker card. There was no other choice, because the Voidwalker had Taunt.
Naturally, Heigan has a another Voidcaller card. (According to Hearthpwn, Heigen has a total of 4 of them in his deck). Obviously, players are not allowed to have 4 of any card in their deck. The bosses in the Curse of Naxxramus content do not have to follow those rules.
This screenshot shows the beginning of an interesting experiment. I have an Explosive Sheep as my “left-most minion”, and I did that intentionally. Explosive Sheep has: Deathrattle: Deal 2 damage to all minions. Again, Heigan the Unclean has a Hero Power called Eruption, which deals 2 damage to the left-most minion.
The Explosive Sheep card only had 1 health. I was hoping the Hero Power would kill the Explosive Sheep and do damage to both of his minions. Sure, it was going to do 2 damage to mine as well. But, I was willing to sacrifice the Explosive Sheep card. The Raging Worgen card has 3 health. It becomes enraged the first time it takes damage. This causes the card to gain a +1 attack and have Windfury (which allows one card to attack twice in one round).
I got lucky, and Heigan the Unclean did exactly what I was hoping he would do.
The Explosive Sheep died, and instantly did 2 damage to my Raging Worgen – which made the card enraged and enacted the Windfury attack. The Explosive Sheep also did 2 points of damage to his Acidic Swamp Ooze – and killed it. It did 2 damage to his Voidcaller, and my Raging Worgen killed it off in my next turn.
Skipping ahead a bit, Heigan used Eruption (his Hero Power) on my Stormwind Champion. It was the only minion I had on the board, so that automatically made it the “left-most minion”. Stormwind Champion has 6 attack and 6 health, so it survived the Eruption attack.
At this point, it dawned on me that if you can survive against Heigan the Unclean long enough to start putting out some of the bigger minions, you have a better chance of winning than you did at the start of the match. He can’t use Eruption to “one-shot” your minions anymore.
Next, Heigan used his other Dread Infernal. Once again, this leaves him with no cards in his hand. The Dread Infernal hit my Stormwind Champion for 1 point of damage, bringing it down to 6 attack and 4 health. The Dread Infernal also hit both me for 1 point of damage and Heigan for 1 point of damage.
This is the point in the game when things started moving more quickly (and also got a little weird).
I decided to use my Stormwind Champion against Heigan himself. I also put a War Golem on the board. This card has 7 attack and 7 health. The Stormwind Champion automatically gives all of the player’s minions +1 to their attack and +1 to their health. So, my War Golem was now 8/8.
On his next turn, Heigan used his Dread Infernal to kill my Stormwind Champion. Doing so took away the extra points that my Stormwind Champion gave to my War Golem.
Heigan has run out of cards and will have to work with whatever random card comes from his deck. That random card just so happened to be a Faceless Manipulator. It says: Battlecry: Choose a minion and become a copy of it. So, I’m supposed to believe that the Faceless Manipulator just so happened to appear now, when I have a big minion on the board? I call shenanigans on that one!
Of course, Heigan the Unclean used the Faceless Manipulator to copy my War Golem.
Then he used his Hero Power Eruption on it, making my War Golem a 7/5 minion.
There is a lot going on in this screenshot, and I’m not entirely certain about all of it. I used my War Golem against Heigan directly, knocking him down from 19 health to 12 health. He used Soulfire to do 4 points of damage to my War Golem, making it a 7/1 minion.
I’ve absolutely no idea why Heigan’s War Golem card (which started out as a Faceless Manipulator) took 3 damage. I also put an Ogre Magi on the board as the “left-most minion” in an effort to prevent any more damage happening to my War Golem. The Orge Magi is has 4 attack and 4 health.
As expected, Heigan the Unclean used his Hero Power Eruption to hit my Ogre Magi. He turned it into a 4/2 minion. If I had decided to put the Orge Magi on the other side of my War Golem, I would have lost the War Golem this turn. (It only had 1 point of health left).
Next, I hit Heigan the Unclean with my War Golem, taking him from 12 to 5 health. I followed up with my Orge Magi, which took Heigan down to 1 health. I also put an Amani Berserker on the board. It has 2 attack and 3 health. The card says: Enrage: +3 Attack. When this card takes damage, it automatically gains 3 more points to its attack.
Heigan used his Hero Power Eruption again, which did 2 damage to my “left-most minion”, my Ogre Magi. That card only had 2 health at the time, so it died.
Randomly, the card that Heigan the Unclean got from the top of his deck just so happened to be his other Doomguard. It is a card with 5 attack and 7 health. It says: Charge. Battlecry: Discard two random cards. It also has a blue gem, so it is rare card.
His Doomguard hit my Amari Berserker, doing 5 points of damage to it (and killing it off). This attack resulted in the Doomguard taking 2 points of damage from the Amari Berserker. His War Golem hit my War Golem. Each one did 7 points of damage to the other and killed it off.
Unexpectedly, Heigan decided to “rage quit.” He said: I should have taken a shower. I won!
VICTORY!
Kel’Thuzad got very angry when I won this match. He said: I am seething with anger. SEETHING. I’ve now defeated two of the three bosses in the Plague Quarter (on Normal difficulty). One more to go!
The reward for defeating Heigan the Unclean (in Normal difficulty) is 2 Unstable Ghoul cards. These cards say: Taunt. Deathrattle: Deal 1 damage to all minions. I will be adding them into a Warlock deck that I’m putting together with all the Naxxramus cards that I have won.
I put this screenshot in just to show that I’ve officially defeated Heigan the Unclean. I’ll be moving on to the next boss when I have the time. There’s a lot more content in the Curse of Naxxramus for me to play through, and I intend to blog about each piece.