Hearthpwn

Heroic Sapphiron - Mage's indirect spell deck

Consistency: Super (win rate is close to 100%)

Introduction:

Sapphiron was one of the hardest Naxxaramas bosses, when this adventure was released. But now he is one of the easiest, since Mage got so many great tools for dealing with him. This is basically the reason, why people think, that Naxxaramas was a difficult adventure. Players had to beat it with very small collections.

Anyway, this deck absolutelly crushes him. It does not use any new ideas - you will find some similar decks on Hearthpwn, but I made a lot of balancing and refining to ensure, that it has as much consistency as possible. In particular, I added much more healing, than such decks usually use and spells are carefully handpicked, because you will need very specific spells to defeat Sapphiron.

General strategy:

Ok, Sapphiron is very similar to Noth and the best strategy is the same as well - keep the board clean with spells and wait for fatigue. However, I had to change Noth's deck a bit due to two reasons.

First, Sapphiron does not punish you for minion's deaths, so it is possible to use powerful battlecries and deathrattles and there are some you want to use here.

Second and much more important. Sapphiron has A LOT of minions, that can't be targeted by spells and some invisible ones as well. So this deck is heavily based on indirect damage - secrets, AoE and random-target spells.

Deck composition:

As I just said, this deck has very few spells, which require a target. Forgotten Torch is needed to gain fatigue lead. Fireball and Frostbolt are just too good to pass. Everything else can be used to kill enchanted or stealthed creatures.

Sapphiron will do exactly 22 damage with his spells and expect some damage from creatures too. So I added Ice Barriers and Antique Healbots. It looks like an overkill, but it is not. You need to draw healing in time and this deck has NO draw because of fatigue win condition. So you need more healing cards to increase chances to have healing when you need it.

Anomalus in this deck is basically Warlock's Twisting Nether of sorts, but he is not essential, so you can replace him with something like Explosive Sheep.

Mulligan:

Breath of Sindragosa (great against Faerie Dragons), Frostbolt, Primordial Glyph, Flamecannon, Explosive Runes. Volcanic Potion may be kept too.

Also keep Explosive Sheep, if you replaced something you don't have with it. The sheep is essentially Volcanic Potion with a delayed effect (which may cause anti-synergy with something like Flamecannon), but it is cheaper.

Cost is irrelevant in this battle most of the time, so I decided to use Volcanic Potions, but you can take Explosive Sheeps instead. There is not much difference between them and you can ping the sheep if you really need to.

Tactic tips:

Preserve your resources and don't use your spells for face damage until very end. Use you Hero power whenever possible, if it will save you a spell.

When you have a choice between a targetable and a non-targetable spell always use the former one since non-targetable spells have more uses and may be needed at a later point.

This deck has a lot of secrets, but most of them will not stay on the board for too long. So try to keep one in your hand to combo it with Medivh's Valets when needed.

Consistency notes:

Control decks usually are very consistent against non-aggressive bosses like Sapphiron and this particular deck is very good as well. Essentially it has 100% win rate. I actually lost the very first game, but I had very bad luck in pretty much every possible way and maybe made some sub-optimal decisions too. It probably won't happen to you. I easily won 10 games in a row after this.

Blacktiger's Naxxaramas deck collection:

• Anub'Rekhan - Warrior's taunt deck                          Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Grand Widow Faerlina - Warlock's egg deck            Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Maexxna - Priest's C'Thun deck                                Super (near 100% win rate)
• Noth the Plaguebringer - Mage's spell-only deck      Super (near 100% win rate)
• Heigan the Unclean - Shaman's spell deck               Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Loatheb - Priest's lifeforce deck                                Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Instructor Razuvious - Paladin's taunt deck              Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Gothik the Harvester - Warlock's survival deck         Reliable (1-3 tries)
• The Four Horsemen - Shaman's healing deck          Super (near 100% win rate)
• Patchwerk - Mage's stunlock deck                            Super (near 100% win rate)
• Grobbulus - Priest's arcane deck                              Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Gluth - Paladin's bubble deck                                    Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Thaddius - Rogue's betrayal deck                             Reliable (1-3 tries)
• Sapphiron - Mage's indirect spell deck                      Super (near 100% win rate)
• Kel'Thuzad (removed, since it is not good enough for my standards, to be replaced)

Provided win rates are approximate. They are based on my tests and so partially depend on how lucky/unlucky I was during my testing. Also keep in mind, that you need a bit of experience with a deck to use it to its full potential. So first attempts usually have lower win rates, than suggested in this list.