Ready for a big, new Naxxramas wing with four bosses to defeat? So are we. Here's what's coming to Hearthstone in a few hours.
The Construct Quarter of Curse of Naxxramas is a few hours away. Less than an hour from now, the Chinese and Korean servers will welcome the new content, followed by Europe and, finally, North America. Get ready for Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth and Thaddius - the monstrous abominations you'll have to defeat to unlock the new cards.
China: August 12th, 23:59 CST
Korea/Taiwan: August 13th, 00:58 KST
Europe: August 12th, 23:59 CEST
Americas: August 12th, 23:50 PDT
Rewards:
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Patchwerk might be the first boss of the Construct Quarter but already he looks intimidating. The massive abomination is all about killing your minions and bullying you out of the battlefield. For 4 mana, he can cast Hateful Strike which destroys any minion regardless of its health. Since there's no "target" in skill's description, one can safely assume that it will destroy a random minion of yours and will also bypass immune minions like [card]Faerie Dragon[/card] or [card]Spectral Knight[/card].
Patchwerk's second killing tool is his signature hook. A persisting weapon that returns to Patchwerk's hand upon deathrattle - meanig that [card]Harrison Jones[/card] or [card]Acidic Swamp Ooze[/card] will merely delay it - the Hook costs 3 mana and is a 5/8 weapon on normal and a 4/8 windfury weapon on heroic. $#!%.
A possible strategy for killing Patchwerk might be going full aggro and outracing him. Playing charge minions will mean that you'll be able to deal damage even with Hateful Strike on the other side and that using the Hook will essentially deal even more damage to Patchwerk's face.
Another strategy, in theory, might be using deathrattle minions to turn Patchwerk's weapons and hero power against him and Shamans might try some Reincarnate/Ancestral Spirit combos to punish the abomination. Playing a Freeze Mage has also proven to be a successful strategy for Curse of Naxxramas bosses - there are no minions which can be killed by Hateful Strike and there is a lot of freeze to keep the Hook at bay.
Grobbulus the flesh giant comes second after Patchwerk and at first sight the fight with him looks somewhat similar to the one against Noth the Plaguebearer. Grobbulus uses his Poison Cloud hero power to deal damage to all minions and spawn slimes if any die. He also uses Mutating Injection to bugg said Slimes (or any other minion of his), giving it +4/+4 and taunt, essentially casting a beefier, grosser version of [card]Mark of the Wild[/card].
Similar to the Noth fight, the strategy here might be to either play fat minions that don't die to Posion Cloud or not play any minions at all (once again, we're looking at you, Freeze Mage). Thus, control decks will mostly likely have to be used as they're always running lots of removals and big fat finishers who won't fall easy prey to Grobbulus' hero power.
Say hello to this good boy, Gluth, the plague dog of Naxxramas who fancies having [card]Equality[/card] on a stick. That's right, his hero power Decimate will change the health to all minions to 1 for 2 mana (on normal) and to enemy minions only for 0 mana on heroic. This will not be the most favorite encounter to those of you enjoying those midrange decks full with value minions.
Judging by Gluth's special cards, the fight will be about surviving his fervor. Enrage is the steroid version of Warriors' [card]Heroic Strike[/card] and will hit anywhere for 6 damage. Additionally, Gluth uses his Jaws weapon to further push his DPS. The Jaws are incredibly cheap weapon for just 1 mana which have the special effect of gaining +2 attack whenever a Deatrattle minion dies. You might be thinking that avoiding all those deathrattle minions will be an easy way to counter that, but you can bet your dust that Gluth will run a handful of them himself.
A possible deck which can survive Gluth's onslaught and hero power is a Paladin aggro. With lot's of low-health minions and packing heavy aggression, face Paladins might be able to win the race against Gluth. Add a touch of healing to counter-act his aggression and there you have it... maybe.
Finally, we have Thaddius, the final boss of the Construct Quarter. Like most other final boss fights, the Thaddius one promises to be a very interesting one, having in mind his hero power. For 0 mana, Thaddius will swap the attack and health of all minions on the field, Supercharging them in advance to give them more firepower. On heroic mode, he will also use [card]Feugen[/card] and [card]Stalagg[/card] so beware.
Priests might really enjoy this encounter if the fight is all about who will deal the most damage the fastest. Cards like [card]Power Word: Shield[/card] and [card]Divine Spirit[/card] can make your minions tough to kill before the Polarity Shift and deadly weapons once the skill is activated.
It sounds simple but we believe it won't be. Unles the Polarity Shift is auto-cast every turn, players won't know when the stats will be swapped and this will take extra planning - carefully assessing will happen in one situation or the other and how to extract maximum value for every turn is what will make or break this fight.
