Beating Blackrock Foundry in Hearthstone

Welcome lads and lasses to my very first post about Hearthstone. Interestingly enough, I am not by any means a new and young upstart into this world but let me also state that I am nowhere near that great of a Hearthstone player as I still make many mistakes during my matches.


I will openly admit that it is a very fun game that I was actually very reluctant to try at first. Mostly due to the fact that I was on a tirade of “Blizzard won't get my money again” just because I have been spurned by World of Warcraft, but that is a different story. Hearthstone has zapped away at least 45 hours of my life and that is perfectly alright. The matches are fairly quick and I do have fun with them. I do not get the negative feedback from other players like I would in most other competitive games such as League of Legends.


As I said earlier I have been very cautious about giving my money back to Blizzard as they almost hooked me for the release of their new expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Not going to lie...I am still very tempted to pick it back up. One thing that I love about Hearthstone is the fact that it is free to play. You do not have to pay for any packs of cards what so ever. If you have the coin to spare then you could pick a few up or earn them the hard way like I have. However, when the Blackrock Mountain adventure preorder came out, I caved and decided to buy it.


Now that the Blackrock Mountain raid/expansion/adventure/whatever you want to call it has not come online, I was anxious to try it out. I have not bought the Naxxramas adventure yet but I will more than likely grab it soon as I have seen many players with the cards that can be won from those sets and I generally have a difficult time with them due to their effects and abilities.


I decided that I would only use one hero for this as I have been having a decent amount of luck with him and that was Gul'dan the Warlock. I managed to beat the entire first wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure using a basic only deck and a few class specific cards which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I did it anyway. Not to mention I do not have a lot of other rare cards that I have seen people throw out, so I played with what I had and after about 11-12 tries (all boss matches total) I finally beat the first wing.


But I did not win this without bringing back a little bit of experience to share with others if they haven't already tried to find help with this new set. So lets looks at the first boss in the the Blackrock Foundry.


Coren Direbrew.


This dark iron dwarf doesn't really seem like he would be that much of a jerk being the first match up in this adventure, but do not take him lightly or you will regret it. His special ability which is basically an auto use at its cost of 0 to use, puts two minions (1 from each players deck) onto the field. Though this sounds like a good idea to some, if you have many minions in your deck that have effects on summon, most if not all of them do not take effect. This also happens for Direbrew's minions as well so there is a silver lining there to be had.


What I did learn after loosing to him twice and then beating him is that I could have just swapped a bunch of heavy hitter cards in my deck and for all of the little minions I was using and not have worried about summoning them as Direbrew would probably have done it for me. I have not tried that out yet so I do not know if that would be the best course of action.


Looking at the next boss of the Foundry. High Justice Grimstone.


I don't really know if this boss was more or less annoying than Direbrew, but I can definitely say this, if you let this guy get to if not more than 8 mana stones...you're probably going to have a bad time. You are in the dark iron arena for gods sake and you are going to be pitted against a lot of rare cards of some famous people in this one. Damn near everyone has come to the arena to join in the fun. From Nat Pagel to Deathwing. Yes, Deathwing. This combo happened to me. It was not fun at all. Still using a basic only warlock deck I was able to beat him after the third or fourth try of unluckiness. His special ability was more of an annoyance than anything as it summons a 1/1 minion with taunt which can really jam up a few things on what you thought might be the final round.


All I can really say is just burn this guy down as quickly as you can because he will summon some really hard hitters with nasty effects. If you can keep pressure on him with your minions though, you should be in the clear by at least turn 8 if you drew the right cards and have him on the ground by turn 9 in a worse case scenario.


Now for the final boss of this wing. Emperor Thaurissan.


This guy is a powerhouse wielding bastard, plain and simple. He is a loving bastard though as he actually starts off with his wife on the field and is fiercely protective of her. Let me start off by saying that you should NOT under any circumstances, kill his wife or it is game over for you. His special ability is only a cost 2 but it deals 30 damage right to your hero. Yeah, that's right. 30. This is stopped only by his wife remaining on the field so it would be unwise to use AoE spells or abilities that hit random targets. His wife will constantly attack only you, or minions with taunt so it would be a wise idea to bring minions without taunt to this fight as most taunt minions will kill her in one to two turns which will then spell doom for you.


I used the same basic warlock deck and after more than a few tries ( I would say at least 4-5) I was able to dethrone the emperor, beat the foundry and win the Emperor's card which is actually really nice. Though this first wing of the new adventure was pretty challenging in itself, I suspect that there will be many more trials and tribulations, along with much harder boss fights to come across as the wings open up in the coming weeks. With this mindset all I will say is this. “I didn't beat the first wing by being prepared. I beat it by being stubborn and that's what it's gonna be like for the rest of these wings so bring it on!”