Hearthstone: Blackrock Mountain

Get ready for new challenges and awesome new cards to turn the tide of battle in the second adventure of this hit card battle game.

Blackrock Mountain follows the style of the Curse Of Naxxramas - the first Hearthstone adventure - in which you have to complete a "wing" of mini adventures every week for five weeks. A wing consists of three battles against computer-controlled bosses whose powerful abilities aim to mess with your brain. Beat all three with your carefully assembled deck of cards and unlock new cards to add spice to your deck.

Every week, there will be special class challenges, which require you to use pre-configured decks to beat the bosses of the week. This week, for instance, required the use of the Hunter and Mage decks.

Since the first wing opened last Thursday, I have been playing plenty of Hearthstone.

There are six new cards to win this week, but only after completing all of the challenges. Two are neutral cards which can be used by all classes. The other four are class-specific. The Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan neutral cards add plenty of new strategies for the Hearthstone player.

The Grim Patron (five mana to cast) is a minion with relatively low stats of 3-attack and 3-health for its summoning cost. But it has the amazing ability to replicate itself whenever it receives non-fatal damage.

For the Mage class, with its innate hero ability to fire blast any character for one point of damage, inflicting damage on your new minion can create an entire army of Grim Patrons if left unchecked.

Warriors who combine the Grim Patron with the Warsong Commander (which gives the Charge ability to minions when they are summoned) and Commanding Shout cards (which protect your minions from going below 1-health for a turn) can unleash waves of Grim Patrons to overwhelm the enemy in a single turn.

Emperor Thaurisian is a legendary-level card that reduces the casting cost of every card in your hand at the end of your turn. This is an exceptional card for late decks, where the strategy is to defend early, until late in the game when you unleash your high-cost big-hitting minions into the battlefield.

If your enemy plays Thaurisian, priority must be given to take out this card immediately before the enemy surprises you with a sudden burst of cards.

Both these minions are dark iron dwarves, which are part of the lore of Blackrock Mountain. Expect dragons, orcs and elementals in the weeks ahead as more of the Mountain opens up to curious adventurers in the weeks ahead.

BACKGROUND STORY

US$6.99 per wing or US$25 for all (PC, Mac, iOS and Android)

Card strategy

ginlee@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Apr 10, 2015.
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