Hearthstone – Curse of Naxxramas first impressions
Yesterday Blizzard opened the way to Naxxramas for Hearthstone players. I jumped in as soon as the content was ready, hungry for a bit of glory and some shiny new cards! After months of teasing this update, I was champing at the bit all day waiting for it to go live. It was three grueling hours of watching Hearthstone’s Twitter, Facebook, and forums before I was able to get my fix. And that’s when I went on Twitch and humiliated myself trying to blow through the new missions.
A wild expansion set appears!
Upon downloading the latest patch and starting up the game client, players are greeted with a message that a new solo adventure is available. I literally made a squee noise. It could have been an excited “aaaaaaa”, but I’m sure the semantics of the noise aren’t really important. I clicked on the solo adventures button (which replaces the old practice button) on the main menu just to make sure Blizzard wasn’t fucking with me. It was there and ready to be plundered, so I loaded up XSplit and started broadcasting.
Like any good pusher, they’ve made the first taste free. For the next month, all players will be able to freely unlock the Arachnid Quarter and experience the challenge of battling a set of three bosses in order to unlock cards from the new set as well as getting to play on a new board. (Yes, I clicked all of the things!) This is where I give Illidan the finger because it turns out that I was not, in fact, prepared. (Smug bastard.) The hero powers on these bosses are a little nuts and their decks are not constrained by normal construction rules. They incorporate multiple class specific cards as well as having more than two of a given card in the deck. Did not see that coming. Beating each boss awards two copies of a specific common card from the new set. Beating all three bosses will award the Maexxna legendary card as well.
The best defense is to top-deck!
Really, the fun part comes after beating all three bosses in normal mode. Doing so unlocks this wing’s class challenges as well as heroic mode for the bosses. As if it wasn’t hard enough the first time around, heroic mode ups the boss hit points to 45 and improves (from a certain perspective) their already OP abilities. Grand Widow Faerlina even gets buffed versions of some minions. It’s a masochist’s wet dream. Challenging would be a good description for these if your idea of being challenged is trying to escape from a straitjacket while suspended upside down from a bridge spanning an alligator pond while also being on fire. If you can beat all three (I have not done so yet), you’ll receive a new card back to show off to future opponents. I only beat Grand Widow Faerlina by top-decking my hunter with my butt clenched the whole time.
The class challenges were a lot more enjoyable for me. (Meaning they involved less swearing and storming out of the room.) This time around are the druid and rogue challenges. Each challenge consists of playing a specific pre-constructed Hearthstone deck against one of the bosses on normal mode (thank fuck). The decks combine some of the new Naxxramas cards (including the class specific card being played for) and selection of favorites from the core set. Since both the deck and the opponent are fixed, the class challenges feel more like Heathstone puzzle mode to me. If I don’t succeed the first time, I just need to try again since winning with the deck should be possible.
I have yet to beat Anub’Rekhan and Maexxna on heroic, but I’m sure that with enough deck tweaking and yelling, they will go down. I like to keep telling myself that. The only real downside for me is that playing these solo adventures don’t count toward quest completions. Still, if you enjoy Hearthstone but haven’t played in a while, now is a great time to come back and try this new mode for free. A new wing will unlock each week for the next four weeks and will cost 700 gold or $6.99 USD. Wing purchase packages will also be availble. For more information, check out this highly relevant blog post about wing entry details.
