by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Sapphiron was a fight that was mechanically quite unique, and required some creativity to beat. As with many of the other Heroic bosses, he begins the encounter with an increased health pool at 45 hit points.

Due to the guaranteed start-of-turn removal of your minions, you have to build your strategy around a combination of Charge and/or Deathrattle minions, as well as direct damage spells. The use of weapons can also prove highly viable, as well. Your survivability is a serious consideration, too, due to Sapphiron’s unique Pure Cold spell.

Classes that are workable for this encounter, broadly speaking, are Mage, Warrior, and Hunter.

Read below for Sapphiron’s decklist, Hero Power information, and our recommendation for the optimal strategy to defeat him.

Sapphiron’s Hero Power & Decklist

Sapphiron’s Hero Power, Frost Blast,  is the same on Heroic as it was in the original encounter, but you do not have the benefit of the Frozen Champion to keep your minions alive. As with all of the other ‘auto-cast’ Hero Powers, Sapphiron will automatically use this ability at the start of each turn.

The decklist Sapphiron runs in Heroic is also markedly different from the normal fight – he runs less Freeze spells (no Ice Lance or Cone of Cold, which actually works against you), but also runs no Taunt minions (facilitating your ability to set up Deathrattle combos or use Charge minions). He even gets to cheat and take certain cards in triplicate! Here is the full decklist:

3x Mana Wyrm
2x Frostbolt
3x Faerie Dragon
3x Loot Hoarder
3x Shade of Naxxramas
2x Skeletal Smith
2x Dancing Swords
3x Necroknight
2x Pure Cold
2x Azure Drake
3x Spectral Knight
2x Blizzard

Winning Deck & Strategy

To defeat Heroic Sapphiron, there are a variety of possible solutions, but the most repeatable success for BlizzPro team members came from a tailored Mage deck.

Using a combination of secrets and spells for removal, you can set up a slow build towards your win condition – playing Feugen and Stalagg into your Duplicate secrets, allowing you to beat Sapphiron in the face with the multiple Thaddius minions that you can spawn. Your Counterspell, provided you have it up, should absorb one of Sapphiron’s limited Freeze spells on Heroic that could threaten this strategy.

Tips for a successful engagement:

– Get your Secrets up early. An optimal start would be to play an early Mad Scientist, and follow it up with another secret (other than Duplicate).
– If at all possible, try to line up your Vaporize usage with Sapphiron’s Spectral Knight play (he has three, so you can’t rely on it every time).
– Fireball is perfect for clearing Necroknight, but let Sapphiron get at least one other minion up alongside it to take advantage of the Deathrattle.
– Pyroblast is a great emergency finisher in a pinch.

If you had greater success with another decklist, please share it with us in the comments! You can also return to our complete index of Heroic Naxxramas strategies for decklists and tricks to defeating all 15 Heroic bosses as we release them.

Note: Sapphiron is one of the three encounters in Naxxramas on which use of Alexstrasza is disabled.