by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Welcome back, fellow players! Curse of Naxxramas continues its weekly roll out of content with the release of the Military Quarter last Tuesday. This release seemed to go much smoother than the Plague Quarter opening, so hopefully you’ve gotten a chance to wage war against these militant bosses already. In continuing to chronicle my experience with the adventure thus far, I will be talking about my battles in Normal Mode against the bosses and the Class Challenges. This series of articles is here to serve as more of a “Things I Observed” while walking through the halls of the necropolis rather than a “How To Destroy Everything ASAP” guide. We definitely have that kind of coverage for you though, so look around the site for additional coverage! Let’s wage war, soldiers.

Instructor Razuvious

Tasked with the duty of whipping newly created Death Knights into killing machines, it’s no wonder his methods seem a little violent…

I assume that this Hero Power is what the Cruel Taskmaster dreams of. Flavor aside, this fight starts out interestingly enough right off the bat. Kel’Thuzad gives you a bit of a hint before you head onto the board regarding mind control crystals that you should ignore. What’s that about? Well, after your mulligan, you’ll noticed two Understudy minions on Razuvious side of the board already in play.

After you get over that little surprise, you’ll also notice a Mind Control Crystal spell materialize into your opening hand in the same way The Coin does. Being wary of traps, I figured that this was a setup, where you would think you could control the Understudies only to have Razuvious use a Mind Control Crystal of his own and take them back. Luckily, no such thing occurred and my gamble of taking them on Turn One paid off, as they absorbed damage while I healed them up and continued to develop my board.

This fight debuted the Deathlord card, which was a reward for a later fight we’ll talk about below. Luckily, I had Shadow Word: Pain for both of his Deathlords and, surprisingly, both of them pulled my Azure Drake minions out onto the board. Just when things were looking super dominant on my side, Razuvious pulled out two tricks. The first was a bit unexpected, since I hadn’t seen him use any class cards yet, but he hit my board with a Brawl. Whoops! Sorry for overextending, bro.

Thanks for the weapon, bud!

Yeah, that’s a tasty blade. Luckily, I took it from him, but he did not seem too concerned about using his own to whack me in the face. If you’re having trouble getting around this crazy weapon, especially on Heroic where it becomes a super menacing version of itself, I highly recommend adding in Acidic Swamp Oozes and buffing up the Understudies to absorb the blade blows.

Gothik the Harvester

Known for raising the dead, Gothik’s fight features the most Boss-only cards so far. They all feature the same caveat, which I’ll display below, but first, here’s his insanely OP Hero Power:

Warlocks everywhere just wet themselves a little bit. 2 mana card draw with no damage attached? Please give! So, you might think that a win condition to this fight would be allowing Gothik to deck himself (especially in the Heroic fight, where he always draws cards to start his turn), but those special minions I alluded to earlier help to put a little kink in that plan.

He had a couple of other versions of minions, but all featuring the same idea: If you kill them, they spawn a spectral version on your side of the board, and at the beginning of every turn, they deal one damage to you. Get enough spectral minions on your side of the board and those one damage pings add up pretty quickly. There are a few strategies. You can Taunt them up and let Gothik take care of them himself; enable them with buffs and put them to work for you; or just fill up your side of the board so that when you do kill off his Unrelenting minions, their Spectral forms don’t have space to spawn on your side. As long as you mitigate their presence and damage, you should be alright in this fight. The only other feature of note here is that Gothik is fond of Warlock spells, so don’t be surprised to find some of your stronger minions being the target of Corruption or Shadow Bolt.

BONUS: As I’ve noted in previous write-ups, each boss has a special reply when you emote them. Gothik looks to be the first boss (so far) that actually gives you multiple replies! Give it a shot.

This absolutely cracked me up. It was late. I had a long week. It’s funny, okay?!

The Four Horsemen

The denizens of Naxxramas haven’t been known for playing fair up until now, so why they should they suddenly have a change of heart? How about a four-on-one?

You’re up against the Four Horsemen, with Baron Rivendare leading the way. You have to kill the three others before Rivendare becomes able to be damaged, per the text on each of their cards:

You’ve got a ton of options here. As a Priest, this fight is honestly just pure fun. Shadow Word: Pain eradicates at least two of these baddies outright and then you can just buffer your way along to Turn Six, fighting back the myriad of spells at Rivendare’s command (In fact, he has NO MINIONS and some of the best spells from multiple classes to help remove your threats.), until you can throw down your Cabal Shadow Priest and partake in the Immunity game yourself.

Two can play that game!

Outside of those antics, the main things to dodge are Rivendare’s own Runeblade and his Mark of the Horsemen spell, which buffs up whichever horsemen are still around plus Rivendare’s weapon, if one is currently available to him.

Ah, I should mention his Hero Power, which is 5 mana to draw two cards. Pretty poor and shouldn’t really affect you on Normal. In Heroic, he will judiciously use his Secrets and removal to keep your board clear, so you might see him Hero Power quite a bit, but it’s very slow. It’s an even worse version of Nourish.

Shaman Class Challenge

Nothing too fancy to report here outside of getting to use some very cool cards if you don’t have access to many Legendaries in your own personal collection. The developers stack your deck with some high value Deathrattle cards and the goal of the fight is to simply get your board developed while strategically using the new class card, Reincarnate, to get benefit from your Deathrattles while still maintaining your board presence. Personally, I just used them after throwing out an Earth Elemental to keep it healthy and rebuff any attacks without the Overload drawback kicking in.

You even get a Feugen preview in the Shaman Challenge!

Warlock Class Challenge

Last, but CERTAINLY not least is the infuriating RNG fest known as the Warlock Class Challenge. You are forced to use a deck that focuses around the new class card, Voidcaller, and lots and lots of Demons. They are also accompanied by lackluster Warlock spells versus Rivendare’s bevy of efficient removal. From here, you can see that whatever you end up having in your hand may not necessarily be whatever ends up on the board when you want it. I found my Voidcallers pulling down Jaraxxus when I didn’t want it; pulling down Illidan only to have him absolutely obliterated on the same enemy turn; and pulling down Doomguard, which was actually excellent, since you don’t suffer the two card discard.

This was my board after finally working around some crazy Secret poking to get Rivendare on his own. I then threw down a Demonfire on my Doomguard for the win! It took me three attempts, which is low compared to some of the numbers I’ve heard from my friends. Funny enough, I went to watch one of Trump’s VODs for this challenge and he got it on the first try. Many people complained that the Hunter Class Challenge had too much RNG, but I’d say this one takes the cake by far.

Looking Forward

Overall, I found the Military Quarter to be a little easier in some respects over the Plague Quarter and a little more difficult in places where I didn’t expect it to be. What was your experience with it? Rejoin me next time, when we’ll venture further into the necropolis and discover what sorts of twisted experiments are going down in the Construct Quarter. If you’ve missed any of my previous right ups on the other wings, feel free to get caught up by using the links below:

• Arachnid Quarter
• Plague Quarter