After not particularly long wait, Karazhan - Hearthstone's third adventure expansion - has arrived in the game. After Medivh fights Malchezaar and defeats in the Prologue mission, players are left to explore the different wings of Karazhan, now redesigned to host one massive, wild party.
A total of four wings, one per week, will be unlocked over the next one month, with the first one - The Parlor - already here. Parlor's boss fights include defeating the [card]Silverware Golem[/card], the Magic Mirror and, most notably, beat the Black King in chess.
Below is a breakdown of all three encounters with clues how to beat them on heroic.
Boss Fight #1 - Silverware Golem
Fight mechanics
The first encounter in Karazhan is all about withstanding the aggression that comes from the ever-SMOrcing Silverware Golem. Every turn, two 1/1 tokens are summoned for the enemy, who also plays different buff cards to synergize with them: giving them Taunt, Charge or various buffs.
How to beat it
You will be on the defensive from the first turn of the fight. Your main goal is to stabilize, exhaust the Golem’s resources and turn the tables from there.
As the tokens spawned from Golem’s hero power are weak, they are susceptible to a lot of removal and pings. Choose classes with a variety of board clears and keep the aggression down to the best of your abilities. Even though Silverware Golem has a few card draw spells, they are tied to the number of tokens it has on the board.
Mage and Warrior are possibly the best classes to clear the spoon infestation, due to their 1-damage AoE spells. [card]Arcane Explosion[/card], [card]Twilight Flamecaller[/card] and [card]Arcane Missiles[/card] are great in this fight and so is [card]Flamewaker[/card] and his pings. Warriors, on the other hand, have almost too much [card]Whirlwind[/card] effects, not only with the eponymous card but also on [card]Ravaging Ghoul[/card], [card]Death's Bite[/card] and [card]Revenge[/card].
What decks to use
Tempo Mage is a great deck for Silverware Golem, though you might struggle stabilizing in the early game if you don’t draw right. Arcane Explosion and Arcane Missiles into Flamewaker tempo is what you need to survive.
Warrior-wise, [card]Grim Patron[/card] decks work wonders, as the 1/1 tokens of the Golem guarantee you will never run out of dwarfs. The boss doesn’t run any spell-based removal, so just whirlwind/patron down his board while building a ridiculous [card]Frothing Berserker[/card] and go for the kill.
Example Tempo Mage deck
Example Patron Warrior deck
Boss fight #2 - Magic Mirror
Fight mechanics
The Magic Mirror has a passive hero power which triggers every time a minion played and summons a 1/1 copy of that minion for it. It plays a lot of spell damage minions, building for AoE spells to blow you out of the fight.
How to beat it
Similar to the Silverware Golem fight, you will want to control the board. A lot of different strategies work here, including milling, using the Patrons from boss fight #1 or – as one creative user suggested – spamming Mirror’s board with useless or harmful minions.
The third method is extremely fun to play, as you can flood the Mirror with [card]Ancient Watcher[/card]s and [card]Eerie Statue[/card]s until it has no room to play his actual minions. Then just silence your own board and clean house.
What decks to use
As mentioned, the Patron Warrior deck works just as fine here because of the 1/1 tokens that the Mirror spawns (1/1 Patrons will never trigger, so you don’t risk anything). If you want to go for the flood flavor, check out this very cool Silence Priest deck submitted by Celadoncvo on Hearthpwn.
Example Silence Priest deck
Example Patron Warrior deck
Boss fight #3 - Chess
Fight mechanics
This is perhaps the most unconventionally designed boss fight in Hearthstone. Each player is given chess pieces who have to auto-attack keyword, meaning they do something at the end of each turn, starting from left to right.
The fight is all about positioning, as most “attack” pieces will damage the enemies opposing them, while support pieces such as the Bishop will affect adjacent minions. Additionally, on heroic, your hero power will allow you to move pieces around for 1 mana so you force favorable trades.
Black King’s hero power is “Cheat” which destroys your left most minion, meaning try and have Pawns on the left and not your valuable minions.
How to beat it
Every piece except the Knight is tied to its position on the board, which makes the Knight arguably the most critical tactical piece you have. The Knight is a 4/3 charger which can target any minion and you can use it to snipe enemy pieces, particularly Pawns because they won’t kill it on the trade.
Use your hero power to rearrange your board for maximum damage. After you’ve established relative board control, use your Queens to hit the face and initiate the damage race. This is critical, because you operate with less resources than the Black King and you can’t just trade forever, especially with Cheat in play.
