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The Dalaran Heist Guide – Heroic Bosses (Hero Powers, Strategy)

By: Stonekeep - - Updated:

The Dalaran Heist has launched! It’s the biggest single player content we had so far. With 75 unique bosses, there is definitely a lot to do. While some of them are straightforward and easy to beat, others might be more challenging. Especially if you’re attempting to clear everything on Heroic. But don’t worry, you’re in the right place!

If you’re looking for more general information about the Solo Adventure, click here!

Below, you will find a full list of The Dalaran Heist bosses with their Heroic Hero Powers, as well as short guides that should help you defeat them.

While some bosses are chapter-specific (so you can only meet them in let’s say Chapter 1, or Chapter 3), majority of them can appear any time.

The guide is meant for Heroic mode. Most of the Hero Powers in regular more are different, weaker version of the one shown here. Still, if you’re struggling against a Normal boss, the general strategy / tips should not be that different!

This guide is work in progress! It will be updated with all of the boss strategies as soon a possible!

Chapter Guides

Table of Content

Aki the Brilliant

Aki the Brilliant is a draenei paladin. His deck revolves around hand-buffing and hand-buffing only.

As we all know, minions with Divine Shield double-dip off of handbuffing effects, and that is why Aki is playing cards like Argent Squire or Annoy-o-Tron. Sergeant Sally is featured in the deck as well, showcasing a big board-clearing threat.

This draenei can be counted as one of the tougher bosses to beat. Try to gain an early board advantage and as much face damage as possible, because once Aki plays his buffed up Doppelgangster, you will need to have the perfect board clear in hand in order to not fall behind. Aggressive mulligans to draw into your early game threats is imperative, and high-value taunts can give you enough time so that you can massage Aki’s pretty face often enough!

Albin Eastoft

Alchemist Wendy

Alchemist Wendy is a human mage and alchemist.

Wendy will always be one of the earlier bosses in the Dalaran Heist; however, her hero power Equivalent Exchange will make things spicier than you might expect!

It will swap one random card between players during each of her turns, making it almost impossible to play a normal game of Hearthstone. As a true alchemist, most of her cards are potions such as Pint-Size Potion or Potion of Madness. Luckily enough, some of these cards are not worthless but synergize pretty well, so you shouldn’t have too much of a hard time defeating Wendy.

Anarii Duskgrove

Applebough

Archivist Oshi

Archmage Kalec

Archmage Khadgar

Archmage Vargoth

Awilo, Cooking Trainer

While “rush him down” is a strategy for a lot of bosses, Awilo is like the exact opposite. Because of his Hero Power and card arsenal, it’s almost impossible to rush him down. You have to get a really fast start, and he needs to have no early spells – a combination which is very rare. What is great for you, however, is that unlike most of the Hero Powers, this one has no tempo or adds no extra value whatsoever. Everything he does is heal – so as long as you don’t try to kill him fast, but instead play the control game, you should be fine.

He obviously runs a lot of spells, most of which are removals. He plays Cleave (which also fits his theme), so dropping two 2 health minions early is not a good idea. Another card you have to be aware of is Warpath – keep in mind that each Echo cast counts as a separate spell, so he gets +5 health for every 1 AoE damage.

His minions aren’t scary for the most part. He runs a bunch of Warrior and Neutral minions, some of which are pretty aggressive (like Frothing Berserker or Kor'kron Elite), but given the reactive nature of his spells, it shouldn’t be enough to rush you down. He can surprise you with a 0 mana Happy Ghoul, but that’s just about as much tempo as he can get. Overall, it’s not a very difficult boss – just play a Control game, even if you have a relatively fast deck. He should run out of cards faster than you do unless you play into AoEs.

Banker Biggs

Biggs’ main strength comes from his Hero Power. To put it simply, it’s absolutely nuts, one of the stronger ones even if you compare to other Heroic bosses. But it’s also a slow one. Not only he has to have a minion on the board, but he then needs to bounce it back to his hand. It also costs 2 mana, which is quite a lot. However, he compensates it with the fact that most of the minions he runs have some sort of immediate impact. A big part of his deck are Charge and Rush minions, as well as some Battlecry minions. The first two are especially powerful when bounced back. A simple Stonetusk Boar turns into a 1 mana 5/5 – and he gets two copies of it, not one.

In case of Banker Biggs, you absolutely can’t afford a long game. His Hero Power is basically “infinite value” – since every time he bounces a minion back, he gets two of them. You just can’t outvalue him. And frankly, once it gets to the point of him using Hero Power every turn, you probably can’t outtempo him either. So your goal is to play as fast as possible, kill him before he can get value. His early game is quite weak compared to his late game. But at the same time, DO NOT leave minions on the board, especially small minions. Trade into them, because otherwise he will just bounce it back next turn and get a huge tempo spike. If the game doesn’t go for too long, you should be able to kill him before he takes advantage of his Hero Power.

Bookmaster Bae Chao

Bookmaster Bae Chao looks to be a Dalaran librarian. Her hero power Shhh! silences all your minions as soon as they enter play. That makes all minions with Deathrattle or direct buff effects much worse; however, the fact that Bae Chao should be one of the earlier bosses during your run should make that hero power too influential. Try to mulligan for early game minions with strong bodies, and go face early as much as possible.

Boommaster Flark

Captain Hannigan

Carousel Gryphon

To be frank, Carousel Gryphon is one of the weirdest encounters in the entire Hearthstone’s single player history. It’s not that he’s particularly difficult, but he forces you to play a completely different game than you normally would. I was flabbergasted when facing him for the first time. If you haven’t already – let me explain his Hero Power. At the end of his turn, his Hero Power activates and “rotates” all minions on the board. It means that they shift one position counter-clockwise… but it counts the entire board – yours and your opponent’s. To put it simply, your right-most minion becomes his, while his left-most minion becomes yours. It’s not a huge issue for decks that run mostly small minions, but if you play some big minions, you have to be REALLY careful. Him taking control of one of your minions, possibly for multiple turns, means that you have to be very careful about positioning.

The rule of thumb would be to play your small minions on right, while bigger minions on the left. He still has a chance to kill the small ones and snatch a bigger one, but you won’t make it easy. At the same time, Gryphon mostly plays small minions, which means that he probably won’t give you anything good. It’s even worse, because everything shifts at the END of his turn, which means that if you set up to steal something you want to steal, he will probably play something small on the left anyway.

If you want to play a single big minion, it’s really not a good idea. You will just lose control of it. You want to play multiple minions at the same time to prevent him from stealing your big stuff. If you have no minions on the board, his Hero Power simply doesn’t work. So if you play a more Control-oriented decks, you might want to wait until the late game and then flood the board with a bunch of small minions + play your biggest one on the left. Or if you play a fast, board-flood deck, just go with your game plan – just mind your positioning a bit.

Chomper

Commander Bolan

Cravitz Lorent

Cyanigosa

Dagg Cruelmight

Dagg Cruelmight runs a Midrange/Tempo Warrior deck with lots of Ping / Whirlwind effects, as well as cards that take advantage of those. Pings/Whirlwind effects include cards like Blood To Ichor, Improve Morale, Whirlwind, Ravaging Ghoul and Death's Bite. When it comes to synergies, he runs Armorsmith, Acolyte of Pain, Frothing Berserker and such.

When you fight against Dagg, you don’t want to drop lots of 1 health minions (because of Whirlwinds / pings), but you also don’t want to drop 4-5 health minions, because he can kill them with ping + Hero Power and get most value. I’d say that the sweet spot is 3 health, but 2 can also do (at least earlier in the game, when he can’t play multiple Whirlwinds in the same turn). This way your board won’t die that easily. Just don’t over-commit, because he has that base covered with Brawl. So it sounds like you can’t play anything? Well, that’s not entirely true. His cards are pretty weak individually, he also runs out of steam relatively quickly unless he gets a card draw. As long as you deal with his “damage synergy” minions, all of his pings/Whirlwind effects won’t really be that effective.

Because of his Hero Power, you also have a much bigger incentive to kill your minions off by trading. For example, if you have a 4/3 minion (damaged) and he has a 3/2, normally that would not be a great trade. But because of his Hero Power, you still might want to take it, because otherwise he will just kill it for 2 mana and no card.

Once you get to the point where you can drop 6+ health minions, you should be in a better spot. He can’t kill them with a single ping + Hero Power, so it should stick more easily. Also, if you run some healing cards, consider keeping them until you can heal up one of your minions so he can’t kill them with Hero Power. Minions that “Can’t be targeted by Spell or Hero Powers” also come handy – like I’ve said, most of his strength comes from Hero Power, so if you take that away, the minion will most likely survive for a while.

Dalaran Fountain Golem

Dancin’ Deryl

Dazzik “Hellscream”

Disidra Stormglory

Disidra’s encounter reminds me of the old Tuskarr Totemic, when he could summon any Totem (and not only basic ones). Her Hero Power is just as powerful, and just as random. Sadly, randomness is a big part of this encounter. If she gets a streak of Basic totems, then you should breeze through it. But if she keeps getting Totem Golems, Primalfin Totems, Flametongue Totems and so on, you will have a hard time.

Her Hero Power is mandatory – it activates at the beginning of every turn she takes. That’s why when considering whether you’re safe against X or Y card, you need to subtract one mana from her pool (not counting any Overload effects, of course). Weirdly enough, she runs some mirrored AoE cards, such as Elemental Destruction and Volcano, which means that you need to be careful about over-committing. It’s important to know that because of her HP, Elemental Destruction can’t come down before Turn 4, and Volcano before Turn 6. She also runs smaller board clears, e.g. Maelstrom Portal or Devolve – those can be especially deadly if you got a nice board early game.

Besides those, she runs a bunch of cards that synergize with Totems and big boards in general. While you can’t do anything to stop a cheap/free Thing from Below (but she will eventually drop them, so be careful), you still do want to control the board as well as you can. Otherwise, cards like Draenei Totemcarver can provide a big board, while Bloodlust might seal the game. So your goal is simple – keep her board in check and slowly, but surely wear her HP down. The thing about her Hero Power is that it’s only insanely powerful in the early game, and only if she rolls some great Totems. The longer game goes, the less impactful it is, as most of the Totems aren’t that hard to deal with when you have board (they usually have 0 Attack).

So the game plan is to go for your highest possible tempo plays in the early game, so you can start answering the totems. Most of them can be cleared easily if you have minions (since they’re 0/2 or 0/3), but can really run away with the game if you don’t clear them (e.g. Mana Tide will draw her lots of cards etc.). In the mid/late game just play the control game without overcommiting to the board yourself – this way she can’t snowball the board, but her AoEs won’t get massive value against you.

Draemus

Erekem

Flight Master Belnaara

Flight Master Belnaara is the flightmaster of Dalaran and can be found at Krasus’ Landing.

Belnaara runs a pretty basic deck revolving around Hunter cards. Besides that, his hero power Take Flight! is the only thing you need to take care of. As one of the very few abilities in Hearthstone, Take Flight! is an ability that will be triggered after a certain amount of damage. If Belnaara receives 15 damage, he becomes immune to attacks for two turns.

Make sure that you count the damage you’re dealing to Belnaara so that you can make the most out of your minions on the board. Him becoming immune also opens up the possibilty to keep the board clean before he lands on his feet again!

Gold Elemental

Haro Setting-Sun

Hesutu Stonewind

Just like with many other Heroic bosses, most of the Hesutu’s power comes from his Hero Power. Or, to be more precise, your goal is to not make it possible for him to use it on any solid minion, because then he just kills you with it very quickly.

Hesutu runs an Elemental deck, so you should expect mostly the generic Elemental Shaman stuff. He has some direct damage in form of Fire Plume Phoenix or Fire Elemental, but most of the Elementals are pretty slow. That’s why you’ll have an opportunity to kill them – and that’s also what you should do. If you ignore a bigger minion, let’s say the 6 damage Fire Elemental, he might greet you with 24 damage to face next turn. Which, depending on when you face him, might be awful close to killing you. You can ignore the smaller, 1-2 attack minions for the most part in the early game (because EVEN if he decides to use Hero Power of those, they won’t deal that much damage), but be careful once he has more mana, because he can be carrying some buffs, which can make Mega-Windfury deadly.

Ichoron

Ichoron is a corrupted water elemental that had been locked away in the Violet Hold by the Kirin Tor.

Ichoron’s hero power Protective Bubble gives all its minions Divine Shield. That makes trading against the enemy board much more important; if you don’t, you will get behind a lot faster than usual. Ichoron’s deck includes lots of minions that summon additional minions like Faceless Summoner. The overall power level of his deck is relatively low, and as soon as you have a firm lead on board, you should be able to ignore Protective Bubble and go face as often as possible!

Jepetto Joybuzz

Kara Stamper

Kaye Toogie

Kaye Toogie is a Forsaken engineer residing below Dalaran.

Open Wormhole, Kaye’s hero power, basically works just like Paladin’s Duel!. Because of that, her deck almost exclusively consists of high-attack and poisonous minions so that she can win the duels as often as possible. A healthy long-term strategy that gives you a guaranteed win against Kaye could the fact that she runs Fel Reaver. As we all know, victory through milling in Hearthstone feels better than anything else, so try your best!

Kazamon Steelskin

If you get Kazamon as one of the later bosses, he can be a tough nut to crack. While his Hero Power has no direct impact on the board and such, it lets him preserve massive amounts of health. Warlock has a bunch of cards that let him trade health for other resources, such as tempo or value. However, in this case, we aren’t talking about “trading”, but rather getting something for free. Most of the cards that deal damage to Warlock are much powerful than their non-damage counter-parts, and you should expect A LOT of them in this deck.

When it talks to “damage your Hero” cards, you name it, he most likely has it. Flame Imps, Kobold Librarians, Spirit Bombs. He also runs A LOT of AoE cards – Hellfire, Felfire Potion, Abyssal Enforcer. Those are pretty scary in the long run, because on top of clearing the board, they also deal a lot of damage to you (but not him). Because of all of that, rushing him down is not a great idea. Not only he has a lot of health, runs some healing, but he has TONS of AoE. However, when it comes to minions, he runs a lot of small ones, 1-drops, 2-drops etc. That’s why the best way to fight against him, in my opinion, is by playing a Control game. Clear his early game – don’t let him rush you down. Preserving health is important, because once he starts dropping AoEs that damage your Hero, you might coincidentally die (the damage really adds up). Once you get to the mid game, try to play one threat per turn, and ideally make it out of range of 3 AoE damage. One of his best ways to outtempo you is to get a great Abyssal Enforcer. Felfire Potion is not that scary, because he spends basically his entire turn dropping it.

Without a regular Warlock Hero Power, he should eventually run out of steam. Once he does, it’s your time to strike. Still, don’t flood the board with small minions, because you can get AoE’d. But once he runs out of cards, you most likely have the game covered.

He also runs DOOM!, so your biggest minions might not be safe either. But funnily enough, when I was playing against him, the DOOM actually costed him a game, because it brought him much closer to fatigue. That might also be a way to kill him. If you play a lot of card draw, try to run him out of cards and then outvalue. But if you don’t, he will probably draw more than you, which means that you can go all the way to fatigue (unless you took a lot of damage early – then you are not safe, if that’s the case – try to kill him faster).

Kizi Copperclip

Kizi Copperclip is the goblin barber of Dalaran. She is ready to show off her coiffeur skills by using her hero power Makeover to buff up the minions on her side of the board. Similar to Spare Parts in Goblins versus Gnomes, Makeover can cause minions to gain random buffs such as Taunt, +attack or +health.

Her deck doesn’t really seems as strong, looking at the fact that she’s always one of the earlier bosses in your run, so try to play around potential board buffs, and you should be good to go!

Lavanthor

Lavanthor is a corehound that had been locked away in the Violet Hold by the Kirin Tor.

His hero power Lava Belch summons a 0/3 Molten Rock that deals 1 damage to the whole board at the end of the turn. As you might expect, Lavanthor’s deck consists of minions that double-dip on taking damage like Grim Patron or Molten Giant. He looks to be one of the later bosses on a run, so it’s imperative to play around Lavanthor’s ability to repeatedly summon Molten Rocks and minions that profit off of it. Rush minions for example do great against those pesky 0/3s, as well as high-value weapons.

Lieutenant Sinclari

Lieutenant Sinclari is a human mage guarding the Violet Hold.

Sinclari is one of the few bosses that bring her own minions in the form of Kirin Tor Guard. Their active ability is to gain +1 Attack for each other friendly Kirin Tor Guard on the board. Her hero Power Hold the Gates! complements a playstyle around defending the Violet Hold by giving a minion on the board +4 Health and Taunt.

If you run a minion-heavy value deck, you want to prioritize early trading against Sinclari. The 1/4 Kirin Tor Guard stat line makes that very problematic, so you need to be on your toes to bring as much power level as you can, because otherwise your opponent’s board will turn into one big taunt wall.

If you can hold up with the early taunts, there will be a point where Sinclari’s hero power is basically useless, and that will be her sign of defeat. However, you will need to count in stall spells like Blizzard and Frost Nova, because Sinclari is a mage after all!

Lilayell Suntear

Linzi Redgrin

Linzi Redgrin is a gnome rogue, patrolling the streets of Dalaran.

As she is one of the earlier bosses during your run, Linzi doesn’t play a particularly scary deck. However, her hero power Lil’ Eviscerate can get out of control pretty quickly, especially given the fact that she runs tons of cheap minions that she can combo off of.

Depending on your starting hand, you have to decide if you go face so you can finish the game early, or if you want to play a longer game by controlling the board. Check out your starting deck to help yourself with that decision!

Locksmith Zibb

Madam Goya

Magistrix Norroa

Mallificent Manastorm

Mallificent Manastorm is a gnome engineer and Millhouse Manastorm’s wife.

Fitting her passionate profession, her deck features numerous mechs. Her hero power Tinker summons a mech as well, in this case a 0/4 Squirrel Bomb which deals face damage every turn if unchecked.

Similar to real mech archetypes, Mallificent plays highly synergistic cards involving the mech tribe as well as Magnetic minions. That and the fact that you will face Mallificent in the later stages of your run means that board control is imperative when playing against her.

Luckily, many mech minions just on their own are mediocre at best, so you need to gain tempo when she decides to play those or one of her own creations such as the Thorium Chicken. Try to challenge the board as efficient as possible, and you will be able to dish out enough face damage in the end game!

Mama Diggs

Marei Loom

Mo Eniwhiskers

Moon Priestess Nici

Moon Priestess Nici is a night elf priest and can be found in Dalaran.

As all priests in the world of Warcraft, Nici is a healing specialist, and her hero power Blessing of Elune does exactly that.

Her deck contains both minions that profit from increased healing like Injured Kvaldir and Injured Blademaster and healing cards like Flash Heal and Light of the Naaru.

One thing to watch out for when playing against Moon Priestess Nici is her ability to quickly dish out immense amounts of burst damage through Embrace the Shadow. Try to keep our your total health high and the board clean in the early game, and you should have no problems overwhelming the board sooner than later!

Moragg

Noz Timbertail

Fight against Noz is very straightforward, but it’s not necessarily easy. Just looking at his Hero Power should tell you about his game plan. Most of the minions in his deck have Stealth. Which also means that he’s very difficult to interact with, but at the same time, most of the Stealth minions in Hearthstone are vanilla, so his deck doesn’t have that much value.

While Stealth minions are usually slow, without any extra effects, the biggest issue is that you can’t target them the moment they drop. He will nearly always get the advantage of dictating where the attack goes. While it will go face quite often (be careful, because those minions really hurt), if he has a good trade, he will definitely take it.

Single target removal spells become much weaker in this situation. Since you can only play them after he already attacks with a minion, it can already be damaged, or even gone. That’s why use those whenever you get a good opportunity – don’t save them, because they might be useless for the next X turns. The best time to use those is when he attacks your face – this way you can get a clean 1 for 1 (with some health lost on your side). AoE clears, on the other hand, are premium. Since this is the easiest way to interact with minions in Stealth, they WILL get value. Don’t waste them – hold them until you can get nice value. Which leads to the next point – Beneath the Grounds. He runs multiple copies of it, which means that at one point, besides the minions he drops in Stealth, he might get a few extra 4/4’s. The longer game goes, the higher the chance is, so having a backup AoE in that case can be nice.

Other than Stealth minions, he mostly runs Jade cards. Which are actually not that different from Stealth stuff – slow. Jade cards have no immediate impact on the board (Shuriken deals 2 damage, but that’s it), so if you can keep the board clear, you should do well. The only piece of advice here is that you might want to kill that Aya Blackpaw, because opponent runs Sonya Shadowdancer, and him getting an extra Aya can let him snowball (Aya is the most scary Jade card, because it ramps them quickly).

Since his minions are also pretty slow, and he doesn’t seem to run AoE, you shouldn’t have a problem getting hold of the board in mid game. It might be harder in the early game though, because of his +2 Attack buff. He can easily trade his minions up and there’s not much you can do. For example, a 4/1 Worgen Infiltrator can easily kill your 3-drops or maybe even some 4-drops. That’s why the board flood strategy should work best against him – not only it will probably stop him from going face, but he won’t be able to trade up. Taunts are also useful in the mid/late game, just be sure to line up their health against the attack of stealthed minions, don’t play a Taunt when he has a good trade. Force him to 2 for 1.

What’s interesting is that his Hero Power works on every Stealth minion, not only his. So if you play one, it also gets +2 Attack. Keep that in mind if you’re holding some Stealth minions – it will have 2 more Attack than you might think.

Nozari

Ol’ Toomba

Ol’Toomba is a troll buccaneer that can be found in the city of Dalaran.

The pirate that he is, Ol’Toomba shuffles three treasure into his deck with his hero power Tales of Fortune. Treasures in that context translate to treasure cards of the old Dungeon run, such as Boots of Haste or Portable Forge.

Toomba runs a pretty generic deck with lots of card draw which will get spiced up by quite a bit through usage of said treasures. Get ready for loads and loads of randomness, even more than usual!

Oxana Demonslay

P.O.G.O.

It probably won’t be a big surprise if I tell you that P.O.G.O. plays… yes, Pogo-Hoppers. Or, to be more precise, a Mech Rogue deck in general. And he has a perfect deck for that – his Hero Power is a better version of Gang Up, because it also draws him a card. Luckily for you, it means that his early/mid game is very weak. Even if he can play Pogo and shuffle it, the first two or three should not be a problem. Similarly, his other early/mid game minions are also quite easy to deal with.

Which makes P.O.G.O. a perfect example of a boss you want to rush. Or, I will make it clear, a boss you HAVE to rush. You cannot outtempo the 20/20+ Pogos in the late game, and you can’t outvalue him because his Hero Power also draws a card. And you clearly can’t fatigue him.

Early in the game he can drop a small Mech, a 1/1 Pogo (which you probably should kill so he doesn’t start bouncing it), equip a Cogmaster's Wrench, maybe play a Blightnozzle Crawler. So nothing crazy. That’s why you have to kill him ASAP.

As a Rogue, he doesn’t really have access to any good AoE clears. But keep in mind that he DOES run Vanish. So ideally you want to try to kill him before Turn 6. But even if you don’t manage to, if he Vanishes without doing anything else, it just buys him a turn most of the time.

Queen Wagtoggle

Queen Wagtoggle appears as a final boss, and whether she will be difficult or not mostly depends on YOUR deck. You see, her Hero Power summons a random minion from your deck under her control, and since she starts at 3 mana, she can play it RIGHT AWAY, on her first turn. I’m not a big fan of this design, because if she gets a Fire Fly, that’s amazing for you – she lost a lot of tempo. But if she gets Ragnaros the Firelord or The Lich King, for example, you can probably kiss your run goodbye… So basically, hope that she won’t get great stuff.

What’s good is that after you kill the minion, it goes back to your HAND, not your deck. Which means that her Hero Power gives her tempo (at least if she summons something worthwhile), but not really value – if you trade 1 for 1, or use a removal to kill the minion, you get a card back anyway. But there’s a side effect you might not think about – she thins your deck HARD. If she uses her Hero Power 10 times, your deck is now 10 cards thinner.

When it comes to her deck, she actually plays a Kingsbane deck. She obviously runs Kingsbane, but also some ways to snatch it (Cavern Shinyfinder), weapon buffs (both spells and minions) and some other weapon synergy cards. Which means that she’s getting stronger and stronger as the game goes by. Between the fact that she thins her deck and she plays Kingsbane, you absolutely CAN NOT go for a very long game. You just won’t win it. You will fatigue way faster than her. To be honest, the best strategy against her is to run a faster deck, or at least hope that she won’t roll the big minions early with her Hero Power.. but this is something out of your control, sadly.

An extra note is that she plays Rogue, and Rogue doesn’t really have access to any great AoEs. So you’re semi-safe to flood the board. I said semi-safe, because she does run Vanish, which can mess up your plans a bit. But for the most part it only slows you down. So your best way to win is to play the board flood strategy and hope for the best when it comes to her Hero Power.

Ranger Ar’ha

Rasil Fireborne

Sael’orn

Sharky McFin

Sky Captain Smiggs

Soothsayer Zoie

From my experience, Soothsayer Zoie is always one of the first encounters, so she’s moderately easy. However, don’t underestimate her Hero Power – if you misplay, it can be absolutely deadly. So here’s the important fact – she always heals her entire board up to full at the START of her turn. Which means that the board state you left at the end of YOUR turn will matter a lot. And that’s basically the story of this matchup.

Zoie mostly runs heal synergy cards, such as Northshire Cleric, Lightwarden, Mana Geode, Holy Champion etc. Which means that she can take a massive advantage of her Hero Power… if you let her. Your goal is to NEVER leave any damaged minions on her side of the board. If you attack something, kill it. Otherwise leave it at full health. Since the Hero Power triggers at the start of her turn, it won’t do anything. Then let’s say that she kills something with her minion. Now you want to finish it off, so she won’t get any value out of her Hero Power. Leaving minions at full health is not optimal, because she can still use healing cards from her hand to get value (e.g. Circle of Healing), but leaving them damaged makes absolutely no sense, because they will just heal back to full. She also runs some buffs, which is another reason to keep the board clear at all times.

The best strategy is to just play for the board. Most of her cards are really weak by themselves, so it shouldn’t be a big problem. Her Hero Power doesn’t affect herself (obviously), so the best idea is to slowly, but surely clear everything she plays + go face with the damage left. At one point you should set up a board big enough to just kill her.

To be completely fair I don’t know whether she runs some big AoEs or not, because most of my games against her ended quite quickly.

Tala Stonerage

Tala Stonerage is a tauren druid running a token-heavy druid deck. Her hero power Twin Paths is basically Fandral Staghelm on a stick, and there synergizes beautifully with tokens, cheap minions and threats that summon additional stuff like Tending Tauren or Cenarius .

As we all know after playing against the Token Druid archetype, it is imperative to control the board as best as possible. We can safely say that Tala happens to be one of the more dangerous bosses, as her hero power can snowball her side of the board out of control very, very early. You should mulligan aggressively for your early game minions and/or board clears, because otherwise you will get run over by a bunch of treants sooner than later!

The Amazing “Bonepaw”

The Great Akazamzarak

Akazamzarak is a goblin Mage from Dalaran. He loves to put up a great magic show, so you have to act quickly before he will be able to pull out his best tricks.

His deck consists of cheap spells and ways to make them even cheaper. His hero power Prestidigitation rewards him with a random “feat”; those feats include spells for summoning rabbits or making all spells in his and your deck cheaper.

Your deck will mostly consist of high-value minions, as spells in random deck aren’t always that synergistic. For Akazamzarak, the complete opposite counts. As already said, try to bring him down before his hand spirals out of magical goblin control!

The Rat King

Tierra Blythe

Timothy Jones

Tipsi Wobblerune

Tipsi Wobblerune is the ghost of a gnome mage and can be found in Dalaran. As most bosses associated with the Kirin Tor, her deck mostly consists of mage cards focussing on spell damage bonusses.

Her hero power Portal Party adds a random portal card to her hand. We know at least two of those, Firelands Portal and Unstable Portal. We also know that Tipsi try to play the longer game, and being one of the earlier bosses in the run, this will probably never come out as planned. Mulligan for decent early game minions, and hit her on the ghosty noggin to prevent those portal shenanigans!

Trade Prince Gallywix

Trade Prince Gallywix was one of the trickier encounters for me, but that was because I had Robes of Gaudiness up. So all of the Coins he gave me were basically useless (but the treasure has carried me anyway, it might be one of the better one to be honest). But when you play against him normally, his Hero Power is actually not THAT scary. The thing is, all you need to do is to make sure that the first card you play in a turn is not very impactful – for example a 1-drop. You don’t really mind him getting it. The goal is to not give him anything you really, really wouldn’t want him to use against you. So playing a cheap card first is the best idea most of the time. If you want to play a more expensive one, you can do it afterwards – thanks to the Coins he’s giving you probably won’t struggle to play “on curve”.

One of the better ways around his Hero Power in Chapter 1 is breaking Cache of Cash. While the Coins he gives you don’t work for his Hero Power, the regular ones do. This way you will just trade Coin for Coin, making his Hero Power pretty useless.

That said, it’s really hard to outvalue him. Even if the cards you give him aren’t very impactful, they are still there and still matter. So he’s winning in value… but you’re winning in tempo, because of the Coins he gives you.

One of the cool things you can do is stock the Coins to use them all on a more impactful card. For example, if you play on curve for the first 4 turns and don’t use your Coins, you can easily drop a huge bomb right after (but better play something small first, just in case).

As for his deck, it seems very thematic – it’s built around Coins, Treasures etc. For example, he plays different cards that give Coins (e.g. Hoarding Dragon, Burgly Bully). He also has cards that take advantage of them (or cheap spells in general) – Gadgetzan Auctioneer, for example. He also has something for the Troggs, because he runs cards like Stonesplinter Trogg and Burly Rockjaw Trogg) – I guess it makes sense since you will want to play the Coins he gives you. He also plays some single target removals (but I haven’t seen any AoE) – such as Vendetta, which can be free if you give him a card from another class. Another card that can make everything cheap is Ethereal Peddler, so if you play another class than Rogue, he might be able to play your cards for cheaper. But I’d say that overall, his deck is pretty mediocre. There are some synergies, but if you don’t let him abuse his Hero Power, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Ungan Oddkind

Valdera Highborne

In my opinion, Valdera’s power comes mainly from his deck, and not his Hero Power. In my few fight against him, it didn’t really matter all that much. Yes, I could not rush him with big minions, but when I was at the point in which I was constantly being able to clear the board AND sneak some damage in, I was winning the game anyway. Where he really shines is his powerful early/mid game and lots, I mean LOTS of synergies.

Valdera runs a deck that I would mostly describe as a rather aggressive Divine Shield Paladin. He runs all sorts of Divine Shield cards and synergies – Righteous Protector, Annoy-o-Tron, Shielded Minibot etc. They are all pretty annoying and difficult to clear, but you absolutely do want to do it. Be prepared for his turn 5 Call to Arms – summoning three extra Divine Shield minions can be really tough especially if you didn’t manage to deal with his previous board yet. Once he stacks multiple Divine Shields, he can buff them all with Rallying Blade, which is pretty tough. He can also drop Blood Knight, which is commonly a 9/9 or even bigger. If you can, save some big single target removal for it. His mid game is mostly more Divine Shield stuff, but they are no longer as threatening as the smaller ones. Cards like Silvermoon Guardian or Dalaran Crusader shouldn’t be a threat to a well-built deck. Argent Commander can get a solid 2 for 1, but it’s still not scary if you have board control. He can also drop The Glass Knight. Try to clear it right away – just getting rid of Divine Shield is not enough, because he has some healing cards (e.g. Truesilver Champion) to put his buble back.  What you should be aware of is your life total. He runs a lot of weapons, and between those and Argent Commanders, if you get too low, he can just hit you a few times and you’re dead. If you get to the spot in which you can comfortably clear the board, consider dropping a Taunt or some healing card to prevent that.

On the other hand, without a board, he’s not really all that strong. So your #1 goal is to keep the board clear. Early Divine Shield minions are really annoying to get through, but they don’t have a lot of attack, so you might get some nice trades if you manage to stick some higher health minions. Later ones If you can’t clear board, try to at least bring down as many Shields as possible before passing your turn.

Vas’no

If I had to best explain Vas’no encounter, for the most part it’s powerful turn -> pass -> powerful turn -> pass. The thing is – his Overload spells trigger three times, but the Overload part too. So if he let’s say play Lightning Storm, it means that your board is basically dead, but his next turn is also gone, because he has 6 mana points Overloaded.

Vas’no’s deck is full of two kinds of cards – Overload removals + Overload summons, both of which are very powerful. Starting with removals – he runs all kinds of them. I wouldn’t worry that much about single target ones (e.g. Stormcrack, Crackle) – you’re actually happy when he uses one of those, a lot of time the second and third cast will be basically wasted. Then, there are AoEs. Those are your biggest problem for the most part. He runs all kinds – starting with Forked Lightning or Beakered Lightning, which are usually harmless to more serious boards with bigger minions. Then the real stuff comes – he runs both Lightning Storm and Elemental Destruction. Lightning storm deals 6-9 damage, which is usually enough to remove most of the things you have, outside of the biggest minions (at least if you get lucky). But Elemental Destruction is just a board wipe, no way around it.

Then, he runs cards that summon minions – notably Feral Spirit and Rain of Toads. Both of them are very, very annoying, because not only they flood the entire board (6/7 minions), but also have Taunts, so you simply have to clear them. Having some AoE can come handy to deal with those. When it comes to minions, he also runs Giants – Snowfury Giant and Arcane Giant. He can get both of those quite cheap quite quickly, which makes the encounter even more difficult. He can clear your entire board then drop a 0 mana 8/8 (or maybe even two). Using single target removals on Wolves or Toads is generally a bad idea because of that – it’s better to save those for Giants.

I think the hardest part of this encounter is when he has an insane tempo turn, and then manages to drop all of his Overload by playing Lava Shock or Eternal Sentinel. You can’t really do much about it. There are two strategies I found solid. First is playing into his weaker turns. Let him overload, then after he does, drop some bomb, or flood the board. Since he will have to skip his turn, you will get a free round of attacks. Then he probably clears it again. But if you’re running low on cards and such, the best idea is to not play into the AoEs too much. Like I’ve said, Lightning Storm and Elemental Destruction WILL clear your boards no matter what you do. So it’s best ot never let him get more than 2 for 1, maybe 3 for 1 with smaller minions. Save AoEs for his flood turns, and at one point you should be able to outvalue him. He runs a lot of cards that won’t be THAT useful – e.g. the Forked Lightning I’ve mentioned. On the right board, it might not even kill a single minion.

Wirth the All-Knowing

Wirth the All-Knowing is a human mage of the Kirin Tor, residing in Dalaran.

He play a spell-heavy mage deck that synergizes with his hero power Prediction, which puts a random class secret into the battlefield.
His minions complement this playstyle, basically making Wirth a Secret Tempo Mage player. As well all know, the best solution against tempo is … tempo!

High-value early game minions with solid stats can keep Wirth’s early secret plays at bay. Try to not play around secrets too much, just because you will always trigger something, looking at the sheer amount of secret cards that are in the game; secrets like Explosive Trap are the exception to that rule, of course!

Xur’ios

Zuramat the Obliterator

Zuramat the Obliterator is a void lord that had been locked away in the Violet Hold by the Kirin Tor.

Zuramat’s strength is hard removal through his hero power To The Void. For a mere 2 mana, he sends one of your minions to the void, which means that not only they die, but they also don’t trigger any Deathrattle effects. Because of that, minions with immediate effects are especially effective against Zuramat. Also watch out for his special spell Void Shift that resummons all minions from the void!

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

5 Comments

  1. Piker
    July 1, 2019 at 8:05 PM

    The cost of Anarii Duskgrove’s “Summon Protectors” has been increased to (3)

  2. MarmotMurloc
    May 23, 2019 at 9:25 PM

    Is Queen Wagtoggle still a heroic boss? I have only run into gallywix as the final heroic boss for the bank, but that could just be really bad luck
    (Reached heroic boss 6 times, 6 gallywix, so maybe it’s just unlikely? Or maybe Wagtoggle doesn’t exist in heroic?)

  3. UnkarsThug
    May 19, 2019 at 4:47 PM

    You should add in the summery which wings that boss can appear in, or add a list of bosses under the wing itself.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      May 20, 2019 at 7:42 AM

      We would, but we still don’t exactly know that. Since they are random, and some seem to appear pretty rarely, it’s hard to really pin-point which boss appears in which chapter. But we’ll add it once we figure that out! 🙂