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Hearthstone: League of Explorers adventure guide

LoEGuide

The third Hearthstone adventure installment, League of Explorers, has finally landed globally after an announcement at this year’s BlizzCon. The quest? To find and retrieve the shattered pieces of the mighty Staff of Origination – an ancient and powerful artifact, perfect to grace the Hall of Explorers back in Ironforge.

You can jump straight to our guides to wing two, wing three and wing four if you please. Make sure you also check out our full list of all the Hearthstone: League of Explorers cards.

The League of Explorers totals four wings, spread out in weekly unlocks. Each Thursday a new wing will open, and along with it a trio of encounters. Besting these rewards a selection of the new League of Explorers cards, with the end of each wing also unlocking a shiny legendary counterpart of your League allies.

Introduced in this adventure is a new keyword: Discover. When you play a card with the keyword Discover on it, you will be given a selection of three cards that pertain to the given text. An example could be a card that says “Discover a (3) cost minion”, this will – once played – give you a choice of three random minions that cost three mana. Understanding this new addition is key to mastering the challenges ahead.

As always, the following decks are very specific, often tailor-made to deal with a certain boss in particular (especially on Heroic mode) – there’s nothing stopping you from altering it and still attaining success. It may be that you are simply missing some of the cards listed, or even you have some better ideas of your own.

Wing 1: Temple of Orsis

Zinaar

zinaar.png

Meet Zinaar – a crafty and dubious genie who wants nothing more to be let out of his lamp-bound prison. Unfortunately for you, you’re an obstacle in his quest for freedom, and will need to battle him to continue onwards in the Temple of Orsis.

Zinaar will try and use his genie powers to give him an advantage in this fight, but he still must abide by the laws of his wish-giving magic. His hero power is called Djinn’s Intuition, which he will cast every time it’s his turn. This will enable him to draw an extra card (and receive an extra mana crystal on Heroic), but it will also supply you with a zero mana-cost Wish card. Don’t worry – these wishes are all beneficial effects, and will prove useful in putting him back in his lamp.

Before we get onto the deck, let’s rundown the possible Wish cards Zinaar can gift you.

Wish for Glory: Discover a minion.

Wish for Power: Discover a spell.

Wish for Valor: Discover a (4)-Cost card.

Wish for Companionship: Discover a Companion

Wish for More Wishes: Gain 2 Wishes.

My initial reaction to this was to make a Rogue deck since pulling off combos would be a doddle, but then I remembered that Flamewaker existed. Being able to deal two damage each turn at a minimum is some fearsome board control. Likewise, you can pile up the Wishes to unleash even bigger blows to Zinaar’s face. Here’s the deck I found worked best:

2 x Sorcerer’s Apprentice

2 x Mirror Image

1 x Arcane Explosion

2 x Frostbolt

2 x Mana Wyrm

2 x Arcane Intellect

2 x Fireball

1 x Bloodmage Thalnos

2 x Mirror Entity

2 x Arcane Missiles

2 x Mad Scientist

2 x Unstable Portal

2 x Flamecannon

2 x Flamewaker

2 x Arcane Blast

2 x Mana Addict

If you manage to draw a Flamewaker early, consider banking Wish cards for later, unless of course you feel like you need the extra umph. I prefer to use the removal to keep the board clear, and protect your Flamewaker. Mirror Image and Mirror Entity help to delay the game long enough to get your engine rolling. I threw in Mana Addict too – a highly undervalued card in this fight, as it can deal game-ending blows to Zinaar’s face if left untouched.

Sun Raider Phaerix

sun-raider-phaerix.png

A hidden temple wouldn’t be complete without its own guardian, and Sun Raider Phaerix watches over the inner sanctum with an indomitable strength. His secret lies in his Rod of the Sun, which bestows its owner with immunity, making them impervious to damage.

The Rod of the Sun is a 0/5 minion (3/8 if you’re on Heroic) that starts on Phaerix’s side of the board, which gives him that aforementioned immunity. To get past this, you’ll need to destroy the rod, which causes it to shift over to your side, making you immune. Naturally, Phaerix will try everything he can to return it to its rightful owner.

Just like with Zinaar, my first inclination was to make a deck with a weapon-wielding class, to take advantage of the immunity. A Warlock deck also crossed my mind, giving you free Life Taps as long as you held the rod. While both of these ideas had merit, it was Priest that has the clear winner, and it’s partly thanks to being able to take the rod out of the game entirely.

2 x Target Dummy

2 x Acidic Swamp Ooze

2 x Inner Fire

2 x Mass Dispel

2 x Shadow Word: Pain

2 x Power Word: Shield

2 x Holy Fire

2 x Silence

2 x Shadow Word: Death

2 x Divine Spirit

2 x Northshire Cleric

2 x Dark Cultist

2 x Deathlord

2 x Velen’s Chosen

2 x Light of the Naaru

If you silence the rod and then destroy it, it vanishes from the field permanently. Then just place a taunt minion, and begin to buff it up into infinity with Velen’s Chosen, Divine Spirit, Power World: Shield, and finally Inner Fire. Deathlord is the best target for this, but it can be difficult to get to him without falling behind – for that reason I included some Target Dummys. Before you say anything, I actually beat this challenge with a 24/24 dummy monstrosity. It works.

There are reports of a cheese strategy which involves stealing the rod, silencing it, then placing a taunt. This method apparently causes Phaerix to pass his turns indefinitely. You can then proceed to murder him while his AI brain overloads with 1’s and 0’s. Yes, this is essentially a AI bug, and requires little effort to accomplish, but even the legendary Harrison Jones will play dirty if it means getting to his precious loot faster.

Temple Escape

temple-escape.png

This encounter is unlike any other – you won’t find a big bad boss to take down here. Instead you’re tasked at surviving nine turns as you run as fast as you can to escape the now collapsing temple. However with your newfound haste, you’ll blunder into various traps and monsters before you see the light of safety from the exit.

With each passing turn, new enemies will be summoned to the board to try and stop you in your tracks. Some turns will also offer you a choice between two different possible outcomes. Examples include choosing between an extra mana crystal or drawing an extra card, whereas another will offer you a shortcut – speeding up the turn timer by one – but adds 7/7 War Golem to the temple’s board.

Remember, your goal isn’t to destroy a boss, but merely survive until the turn timer reaches zero. With this in mind, a Freeze Mage deck is a perfect fit for freezing any threats, and also giving you extra turns via Ice Block.

2 x Cone of Cold

2 x Ice Block

2 x Frost Nova

2 x Frostbolt

2 x Ice Lance

2 x Blizzard

2 x Loot Hoarder

2 x Acolyte of Pain

2 x Novice Engineer

2 x Arcane Intellect

2 x Fireball

2 x Polymorph

2 x Ice Barrier

2 x Mad Scientist

2 x Flame Lance

Because there’s a set pattern for this encounter, I’ll reveal the choices I made on each turn to attain victory on Heroic mode.

On turn one, I’d pick the “Wade Through” option and gain an extra mana crystal, since this deck has decent card draw already.

Turn two is a bit of a mix up – you can take the five damage from “Walk Across Gingerly”, or risk it by choosing “Swing Across” and hope avoid the damage completely. If you’re unlucky and take the larger ten damage, you can always redo the fight until you do it successfully.

When you reach turn four, I always end up opting for the ten health via “Touch It”. If you’re somehow undamaged, you can always grab the two extra cards with “Investigate the Runes”. Either way you’ll summon an 10/10 Animated Statue.

Finally on turn seven, you’re given the choice of taking a shortcut or doing nothing. I’d say that if you have an Ice Block in place at this time, you can feel free to take the shortcut and summon the 7/7 War Golem. Do keep in mind that you’ll skip turn eight with the shortcut, and that includes the 5/9 Seething Statue, which deals five damage to all of your minions.

And there we have it – with the rod in your possession, you’ve completed the first step in restoring the Staff of Origination. Hop over to the next page forwing twoof the League of Explorers adventure, where we’ll be journeying into the halls of Uldaman.

Wing 2: Uldaman

Chieftain Scarvash

chieftain-scarvash.png

You don’t reach too far into Uldaman before you stumble across Chieftain Scarvash – a nasty, bloodthirsty Trogg. It’s not just him you have to worry about, but his Trogg horde too. Casting spells in front of these Troggs will only make them angry, which translates an increased attack power. That’s bad – you don’t really want to cast spells when these guys are on the board.

Unfortunately, Scarvash’s hero ability makes it hard not to cast spells. It’s a passive that switches between two different states. Trogg Hate Minions! – which increases the mana cost of minions by 2, and Trogg Hate Spells! – which increases the mana cost of spells by 2. These switch at the start of your turn, so you’ll need to plan ahead if you want to succeed.

On Heroic difficulty, these passives set the cost of minions or spells to 11, making it impossible to cast them when they’re affected.

This Shaman deck is not only cheap to construct, but quite effective at giving you good options in both minions and spells.

2 x Earth Shock

2 x Feral Spirit

2 x Bloodlust

2 x Hex

2 x Rockbiter Weapon

2 x Totem Golem

2 x Whirling Zap-o-matic

2 x Powermace

1 x Lava Burst

2 x Lightning Storm

2 x Fireguard Destroyer

1 x Fire Elemental

2 x Annoy-o-Tron

2 x Mechwarper

2 x Mechanical Yeti

2 x Piloted Shredder

There is a slight amount of RNG to this fight – draw too much of one card type and you’ll struggle to gain board presence. The key to success is stabilising from the unfair advantage at the start, and taking care of the two Troggs Scarvash starts with. This means that casting spells is not the way to go, unless you can guarantee it’ll do the job. Annoy-o-Tron, Totem Golem and Powermace really help with developing your board control, so try to mulligan for them early.

The endgame is to build a board big enough to one-turn-KO Scarvash with a hefty dose of Bloodlust.

Mine Cart

mine-cart.png

You might have dealt with Scarvash, but the endless horde of Troggs isn’t so easily pacified. Following Brann Bronzebeard’s advice, you hop into a rickety mine cart in order to try and escape, while giving you a one-way ride into the heart of Uldaman. Naturally, you’re pursued: Troggs, Golems and even falling debris will try and end your roller coaster ride prematurely.

This encounter is similar to the Temple Escape in the first wing of LoE, in that you’re trying to endure the onslaught for a number of turns in order to succeed. Unique to this one however is the fact that you don’t need to make your own deck – instead you’ll use a premade one specially tailored for this challenge.

All of your cards cost one mana, but you only have two mana to spend on each turn. Here’s what each card does:

  • Mechanical Parrot: 3/6 minion.

  • Spiked Decoy: 3/6 minion with taunt that cannot attack.

  • Barrel Forward: Get 1 turn closer to the Exit!

  • Boom!: Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions.

  • Consult Brann: Draw 3 cards.

  • Dynamite: Deal 10 damage.

  • Repairs: Restore 10 Health.

You also have a heroic ability which will deal three damage to a random minion. You should only really use this if you know it will definitely kill a minion.

Every turn will see random enemies summoned via the Flee the Mine! heroic ability. These can be from a selection of a 2/6 Chasing Trogg, 0/3 Debris with taunt, 4/6 Earthen Pursuer, or a 6/6 Lumbering Golem. You can get unlucky and face with the heavy hitters, or lucky and only have to deal with the weaker minions. For this reason, it’s OK to concede and restart if you feel that you were dealt an unfair opposing board by the RNG Gods.

You can use your minions to trade efficiently with the Troggs and Pursuers, and even use them to hit into the Golems if you can follow up with a Boom! to finish them off. Drawing extra cards is more useful when there’s less enemy minions threatening you on the board, so try to do it early if you do have any Consult Brann cards in your hand. Hopefully, you’ll gather a number of Barrel Forward cards to push you through two consecutive turns in one go, beating the encounter.

Archaedas

archaedas.png

Just when you finally think you’ve escaped the endless Trogg horde, you’re met with another formidable guardian in the form of Archaedas – mighty servant of the even mightier Titans. He guards the second piece of the Staff of Origination, and you’ll have to trade blows with him and his statue army if you want to get your hands on it.

Every turn, Archaedas will summon an Earthen Statue minion for you and himself with his heroic ability, Statuesculpting. On normal difficulty, they’re 0/2 minions, but on Heroic difficulty you’ll receive a 0/2 minion, whereas Archaedas will receive a 0/5 minion.

At first glance, this doesn’t seem like much of a threat, but Archaedas has an arsenal of cards which will turn his statues into deadly foes. Animate Earthen will give all of his minions +3/+3 and taunt, turning his statues into 3/8 minions which are much harder to take down. He can also destroy all statues on the board with Shattering Spree, and deal three damage for each statue destroyed to a target, including your precious life total.

Using another Shaman deck, we can empower our own statutes to not only go on the offensive, but to control their numbers and deplete the use of his Shattering Spree card, which can easily deal lethal damage to your hero.

2 x Earth Shock

2 x Feral Spirit

2 x Bloodlust

2 x Hex

1 x Azure Drake

2 x Dire Wolf Alpha

1 x Sunfury Protector

2 x Flametongue Totem

1 x Knife Juggler

2 x Rockbiter Weapon

2 x Abusive Sergeant

2 x Sea Giant

2 x Emperor Cobra

2 x Lightning Storm

2 x Whirling Zap-o-matic

1 x Lava Shock

1 x Tuskarr Totemic

1 x Elemental Destruction

It’s easy to just go straight for his face with this deck, and that’s encouraged, but not until you have the number of statues down to a reasonable number. If there’s ever more than six statues on the board, you run the risk of him dealing upwards of 20+ damage, which will most likely kill you after you’ve already traded some blows in the early game.

Use spells such as Earth Shock and Hex, as well as minions such as Sea Giant and Emperor Cobra to take control of the board. Interestingly enough, he may sometimes favour targeting a Emperor Cobra with his Shattering Stone spell if it’s on the board when he casts it, even if forgoes near lethal damage to your face. Just like Scarvash, you’re going to try and build up enough of a presence in order to OTK him with Blood Lust.

And there we have it – only one more piece of the staff is left to collect before the artifact is complete. Continue reading forwing threeof The League of Explorers adventure, where we’ll be journeying into the desolate Ruined City.

Hearthstone patch 4.0

Wing 3: The Ruined City

Lord Slitherspear

lord slitherspear

The final piece of the staff lies within the Ruined City – a place where all sorts of sea-folk dwell, and not the nice variety. This fact is demonstrated with the villainous act of kidnapping the League’s very own Sir Finley Mrrgglton. A Naga lord known as Slitherspear has your poor Murloc companion in a cauldron, ready to feed his hungry brethren.

Sir Finley will begin the encounter as a fat taunt minion which you’ll need to break free. For every turn Sir Finley remains in his prison, Slitherspear will use his hero power to summon a Hungry Naga. These will arrive on the battlefield initially rather weak, but each one will be stronger than the last, eventually threatening to overwhelm you.

But even after you break free Sir Finley from his precarious situation, you’ll have to deal with a new threat. Slitherspear’s hero ability will flip to a new one, giving his hero a large +2 attack (+5 on Heroic). With his plan of attack being to kill you as soon as possible, favouring your face over your own minions, this is a race against the clock to knock him out before he gets too big. What better to achieve this than with the PvE smasher: One Turn Kill Priest.

2 x Circle of Healing

2 x Spellbreaker

2 x Big Game Hunter

2 x Inner Fire

2 x Mass Dispel

2 x Shadow Word: Pain

2 x Power Word: Shield

2 x Ironbeak Owl

2 x Silence

2 x Shadow Word: Death

2 x Divine Spirit

2 x Northshire Cleric

2 x Auchenai Soulpriest

2 x Deathlord

2 x Velen’s Chosen

Silences are a perfect weapon against the Hungry Naga that Slitherspear spawns with his hero power, turning them into harmless 1/1’s. Save your other removal for Naga that he plays from his hand. Find your Deathlord and buff him up into infinity with Power World: Shield, Velen’s Chosen, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire. Card draw is pretty key to collecting your combo, so always aim to get a Northshire Cleric in your opening hand.

At the time of writing, this encounter seems to be bugged in its Heroic variation. Sir Finley Mrrgglton and his cauldron are missing completely, which means that Slitherspear never enters his enrage phase and swapping his hero ability. This means – for better or worse – he’ll constantly keep spawning Hungry Naga all game long, but they’re also bugged starting as 1/1 minions, instead of more deadly 3/3’s. Don’t worry though, as this deck is still effective even if the bugs get fixed.

Giantfin

Giantfin

Even with Sir Finley Mrrgglton in the safety of your care, you run into an even deadlier foe on your way to the pearls location. Giantfin is an absurdly humongous Murloc who leads a warband of his kind. While his motive is unclear, the rapturous and angry “Mrglmrgl” sounds are enough to let you know that you’re in for a fight.

Giantfin’s hero ability allows him to draw cards until he has as many as you do in his hand. On Heroic difficulty, he instead will always draw two extra cards on his turn. With his deck teeming with low-cost Murloc cards, this isn’t anything to laugh at – he can overwhelm you in an embarrassingly short amount of time. Even when you slay the majority of his board, he can cast “Mrgl Mrgl Nyah Nyah” to summon three (five on Heroic) Murlocs that died in the game.

Murlocs are weak on their own, only reaching stupidly powerful states when they buff each other up. Removal is king in this fight – especially that of the mass variety – while the notorious Grim Patron card can dominate the low attack values of lone Murlocs. Naturally, Grim Patrons feel right at home in this cheap Warrior deck.

2 x Wild Pyromancer

2 x Frothing Berserker

2 x Mad Bomber

2 x Whirlwind

2 x Slam

2 x Cruel Taskmaster

2 x Inner Rage

2 x Acolyte of Pain

2 x Fiery War Axe

2 x Armorsmith

2 x Death’s Bite

2 x Unstable Ghoul

2 x Explosive Sheep

2 x Grim Patron

2 x Revenge

Use your removal to take down any Murlocs that provide other Murlocs with power buffs e.g. Warleader, Oracle etc. Once they’re out of the way, you can slam your Grim Patrons into the weak minions to not only dispatch them, but to fill your own board with more of the rowdy Dwarves. If you don’t win with this method alone, you can always power up a Frothing Berserker and OTK Giantfin for victory. This deck is a pretty sure win.

Lady Naz’jar

Lady Nazjar

So you’ve dealt with the Naga and the Murlocs, but now you must answer Lady Naz’jar herself – a powerful Naga sea witch. She harnesses the power of the peal for her own nefarious use, and that includes taking care of unwanted visitors, which includes you unfortunately.

Her hero ability is a strange one. At the end of her turn, every remaining minion on the board will be replaced with a random one. On normal difficulty, all minions will be replaced with those that cost one additional mana, which can lead to some hilarious outcomes if you manage to get something sticky down. Switching to heroic however severely kneecaps you: only her minions will be replaced by those who cost one additional mana, which means your effective board power eventually stagnates.

To take her down you’re going to need ruthless means of removal, as well as ways to put big creatures down early on. There’s no class better for this task that the rampant Druid:

2 x Razorfen Hunter

2 x Naturalize

1 x Imp Master

2 x Savage Roar

2 x Murloc Tidehunter

1 x Mind Control Tech

2 x Dragonling Mechanic

2 x Violet Teacher

2 x Innervate

2 x Sea Giant

2 x Silver Hand Knight

1 x Kel’Thuzad

2 x Echoing Ooze

1 x Dr. Boom

2 x Darnassus Aspirant

2 x Living Roots

2 x Mounted Raptor

Scoring some early innervates in your opening hand can help you drop something hideously big right out of the gates, allowing you to keep up with her many mass minion spells. Naturalize is a fantastic way to get rid of any troublesome minions that she manages to conjure from her hand or from her hero ability, while Mind Control Tech can rob her of her biggest threat. Your killing blow however will mostly come from an overwhelming board state combined with a use of Savage Roar – just remember to keep her board clear at all times, don’t ignore it.

Congratulations intrepid explorer! The Staff of Origination is finally reassembled and ready to be presented in the Hall of Explorers, where it belongs. What’s that? A mysterious thief named Rafaam stole the staff! Worse still, it looks like he’s also turned the Hall of Explorers and the artifacts within against you.

Head to the next page for wing fourwhere we face our final adversary in the League of Explorers adventure, and finish collecting the last remaining cards of the set.

Wing 4: Hall of Explorers

Skelesaurus Hex

Rafaam begins his mischief by animating the gigantic dinosaur skeleton that hangs proud in center of the Hall of Explorers. You’re going to want to prepare yourself: this is the hardest boss of the entire adventure.

Why so difficult? It’s not the beast’s deck that causes the trouble, but its hero power. Every turn, Hex will add a random card to its hand, which costs zero mana to cast. On normal, you’ll get one too, so it’s all merry and fair. On Heroic, however, you won’t share in the fun.

This fight is RNG to the extreme: you’re going to see soul destroying plays from Hex as he drops minions like Dr. Boom, Tirion Fordring and Deathwing all on turn one. Likewise, you might luck-out and face relatively low power cards, but don’t count on it.

You’re at a huge disadvantage here, and trying to attain any sort of board presence through aggression is likely to falter. The best way to topple Hex is mill his deck with a Rogue, and beat him with fatigue damage:

2 x Deadly Poison

2 x Coldlight Oracle

1 x Blade Flurry

2 x Preparation

2 x Fan of Knives

2 x Eviscerate

2 x Sap

2 x Backstab

2 x Ironbeak Owl

1 x Bloodmage Thalnos

2 x Shadowstep

2 x Earthen Ring Farseer

1 x Assassinate

2 x Vanish

1 x Deathlord

2 x Antique Healbot

1 x Gang Up

1 x Brann Bronzebeard

The best part about this deck is that it will make Hex’s hero power completely redundant if you get their hand to maximum size at the start of their turn. This is because their hero power triggers before anything else, which includes playing cards from Hex’s hand.

Try and get Coldlight Oracle, Deathlord, and Backstab in your opening hand for maximum potential. Don’t cast your Coldlight Oracles without being able to protect them with either Shadowstep or Gang Up – this is your primary win condition. It doubles in effectiveness with Brann Bronzebeard on the board, so if you have him in hand, consider waiting till he’s out. Be picky with your removal, and before long the reanimated dinosaur will return to the bag of bones it once was.

The Steel Sentinel

More animated foes await you: this time an ethereal plate of armour, which contains some interesting properties. The Steel Sentinel’s hero power is a passive ability which causes it to only take one damage from any source at any time. On Heroic, this power also extends to the Sentinel’s minions.

Naturally, this makes any minion with more than one attack pretty lackluster, and any high damaging spells nullified. What we need is spammable weak minions with high persistence. My initial choice for this was a Paladin, with their hero power being a perfect fit, but in later testing it became obvious that Warlock has the most potential:

2 x Mortal Coil

2 x Voidwalker

2 x Mogu’shan Warden

2 x Sacrificial Pact

2 x Knife Juggler

1 x Siphon Soul

1 x Bane of Doom

1 x Baron Rivendare

1 x Kel’Thuzad

2 x Haunted Creeper

2 x Unstable Ghoul

2 x Annoy-o-Tron

2 x Imp-losion

2 x Imp Gang Boss

2 x Demonwrath

2 x Dreadsteed

2 x Dark Peddler

The key card in this deck is the Dreadsteed. It’s a paltry 1/1 for four mana, but it turns this fight into a doddle. Once on the board, there’s nothing (from what I’ve witnessed) that will remove it, making it incredibly valuable. Combine it with some Knife Jugglers and a Baron Rivendare and you can own this fight – as evidenced here:

Getting to this board state isn’t as hard as you think. Make use of Voidwalker and Mogu’shan Warden to stave off any early aggression. Imp-losion – whose damage is negated – can fill your side of the board with a healthy dose of imps. The same can be said for an early played Imp Gang Boss. If you manage to plop down a Kel’Thuzad, the game is pretty much impossible to lose. Don’t try and prove me wrong, though.

Arch-Thief Rafaam

Finally, a confrontation with the being behind all this silliness. We already know Rafaam is dubious, so it’ll come as little surprise that at the beginning of this encounter he actually steals your deck outright, forcing you to use a deck constructed by the League of Explorers. Don’t worry though, it’s not all that bad: we can abuse Rafaam’s greed.

Going into your collection and building a deck that’s terrible is a refreshing experience. You’re going to want to roll a Warrior for this one, and that’s mainly because of the Cursed Blade card, as explained below. Other than that, just make sure to put in as many low power rare cards as possible – the more useless the better.

2 x Angry Chicken

1 x Mana Addict

2 x Coldlight Oracle

2 x Ancient Watcher

2 x Commanding Shout

2 x Murloc Tidecaller

2 x Alarm-o-Bot

2 x Lightwarden

2 x Bloodsail Corsair

2 x Secretkeeper

2 x Jeeves

2 x Dragon Egg

2 x Revenge

1 x Sir Finley Mrrgglton

2 x Eerie Statue

2 x Cursed Blade

Your main cause for concern in this encounter is Rafaam’s hero ability, which essentially gives him a free Unstable Portal every turn. If he doesn’t get anything crazy from it, you should breeze through. A card inside your borrowed deck is the Rare Blade – which increases in power for every rare card your enemy plays. This is why we jam-packed your deck full of rare cards.

Aside from the minions he gets from his hero ability, every card Rafaam plays will power up your weapon. You can just repeatedly hit his face and use your cards to diminish his board presence. The process is sped up if he plays a Cursed Blade, as it’ll double any damage he receives.

There is a small chance he may play Boneraptor, which will steal your weapon – something which could be devastating if you have an insanely buffed Rare Blade. However, I never saw this minion once in my attempts – I assume it’s randomly given to him via his hero ability. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Rafaam Unleashed

Did you really think it would be that simple? Rafaam is done playing games now, which is signified by his grabbing the Staff of Origination and turning it against you. His hero power is derived from the staff: for three turns, he will be completely immune to damage. After they’re up, he’ll become vulnerable for a single turn, but also summon an incredibly powerful minion from the League of Explorers adventure. He’ll also play and cast cards from his own deck on top of this, often very powerful in nature.

But you’re not alone in this encounter. The League of Explorers are here to help, throwing any powerful artifact that they can find into your hand. Your hero power is replaced with Rummage, which can produce a huge assortment of zero mana-cost cards. They’re all pretty powerful, although naturally some are better than others. You should make good use of it whenever you have the mana spare to use your hero power. Just becareful of the ones that affect both you and Rafaam.

Being able to take care of the mega-minions he summons from the staff is the key to victory in this encounter. Better yet, making them your own is an even better solution – who better to achieve this than the persuasive Priest class:

1 x Big Game Hunter

2 x Azure Drake

1 x Alexstrasza

2 x Mind Control

1 x Ysera

2 x Shadow Word: Death

1 x Sylvanas Windrunner

2 x Holy Nova

2 x Velen’s Chosen

1 x Vol’jin

2 x Lightbomb

2 x Blackwing Corruptor

2 x Twilight Whelp

2 x Resurrect

2 x Twilight Guardian

1 x Confessor Paletress

2 x Faceless Manipulator

2 x Entomb

This deck just has amazing synergy with how this encounter plays out. Mulligan for Shadow Word: Death, Big Game Hunter and Entomb. Why? Well, Rafaam will drop a huge 10/10 minion every three turns. With a Shadow Word: Death in hand, you can deal with the first drop, followed by a Big Game Hunter or Entomb for the second. From then on, you should have a good handle of the board to be able to deal with future summons.

Use Twlight Whelp, Twlight Guardian and Azure Drake to keep your board healthy between his vulnerable phases. Dropping a Sylvanas right before he pops his hero power can potentially give you the minion he summons, which will grant you its powerful effects – not to mention its meaty body to slam into his face. You can also achieve this via Faceless Manipulators, or the more expensive Mind Control.

Alexstrasza, Ysera and Confessor Paletress represent your win conditions if stealing his mega minions doesn’t work out. Just keep in mind that Rafaam has copies of Twisting Nether in his deck, which means he can wipe the board clean of all minions around turn eight. To negate this, don’t dump all of your powerful minions from your hand if you’ve got a healthy lead. Board control is the key to victory here.

With Rafaam finally defeated, you’ll bag yourself the last remaining cards from the adventure, and the Staff of Origination will be returned to its rightful place inside the Hall of Explorers. If you’re still missing cards, don’t forget to complete all of the class challenges, which are extremely easy thanks to the pre-made decks.