Cheap + Easy Heroic Nefarius
- Last updated Apr 26, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)
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Wild
- 11 Minions
- 13 Spells
- 6 Weapons
- Deck Type: PvE Adventure
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Boss: Lord Victor Nefarius
- Crafting Cost: 2800
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/24/2015 (Blackrock Launch)
- thepoxbox
- Card Design Champion
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- 14
- 16
- 37
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Battle Tag:
poxpower#1245
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
669
Who would have thought this was possible?
I have an about 60% win rate now with this deck over 30 tries.
Btw: DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH MILL DECKS AGAINST HIM. ALSO, READ THIS GUIDE ON HOW TO PLAY THE DECK.
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Replacements:
Deck Core: 2x Arcane golem, 2x arcanite reaper, 2x death's bite, 2x execute, 2x cruel taskmaster, 2x kor kron elite, 2x fiery war axe, 2x shield block, 2x antique healbot, 2x shieldmaiden, 2x mortal strike
The epics don't really matter that much individually but they offer very good any-size removal. They can all just as easily win you the game as sit in your hand doing nothing. I'd say that bouncing blade is probably the best, followed by shield slam and then crush.
Other considerations: Mind control tech, big game hunter, cleave, whirlwind, sylvannas.
General Strategy:
Nefarius is as evil as he is stupid. How you beat him is simply to remove all of his minions and never play any of your own. This will cause him to stop playing cards eventually and just burn the rest of his deck as he sits there with a 10 card hand doing nothing even though he probably has lethal on you since most of his hand is direct damage. This is why mill strategies are bad. If you feed him cards, he will overwhelm you with the minions in his deck before you can remove them.
STRATEGY:
Mulligan for: Fiery war axe, ironbeak owl, execute, bouncing blade, arcane golem
1. Phase 1: Surviving ( turn 3,4,5 ) this is the time to remove his minions while taking as little damage as possible. This is where Brawl can randomly win the game. Arcane golem and bouncing blade are very strong here as they are just about the only removal that costs 3 and that will take out a guy ( like the 5/4 ). This is huge as it often means saving you 10+ life. Early you MUST kill as many minions as you can every turn. This means spending all your mana and trying to at least set up his guys to die ( for instance set a 5/5 to 5/1 by running a kor kron into it knowing it will die to death's bite trigger etc ).
These are the crucial turns where he will almost always bring you down to less than 10health before he just stalls out. If he draws just a little bit too many minions, you lose. It's about a 50-50 and it can depend on the Ragnaros card.
As a general rule, try to only have one minion out at a time, as if you have two he will simply flamestrike/cleave them while empties his hand. This is bad, you don't want this.
2. Phase 2: He's out of minions. Eventually, once his hand is usually at 4-5 cards, he will spend a turn playing just one or no minions. This means you've won. Now check how much health you have left. If you'are close to 4-5 and have low removal, play healbots and shieldmaidens. Otherwise, just armor up, then equip a death's bite / arcanite reaper and pass. In this phase, he will simply play one minion per turn if he draws one, so keep in mind that he could play a giant twilight drake or a 9/9 crusher. Keep your executes / shield slams / bouncing blades for those guys and use smaller chargers and weapons for the smaller minions. NEVER DROP TO 4, OR 8 IF YOU CAN HELP IT. DON'T PLAY ANY MINIONS AT THIS STAGE UNLESS YOU NEED TO HEAL.
3. Phase 3: Deck burning. Now as he keeps playing his topdecked minion each turn, he will also get a random warrior card which clogs his hand. He will also draw spells. In that case, he will play nothing and pass. Eventually he will be at 10 cards in hand and pass the turn. This is the time to just go face with weapons and burn useless cards like revenge so you don't have more than 10 cards in hand. NO MATTER WHAT THOUGH, DO NOT PLAY ANY MINIONS. He will just burn the rest of his deck so just wait even if you have 10 cards in hand and start burning your own cards. Doesn't matter. Just armor up and pass.
4. Final phase: Fatigue war. When he's burned the last card in his deck, you've usually won. Now you have two options: Play it fast or play it slow. If you're really low on life ( like 15 or less total life + armor ) you should play it fast. So just drop your weakest minion ( ONE AT A TIME, NEVER MORE THAN ONE, EVER ) first ( like ironbeak owl and cruel taskmaster ) so he starts to burn his good removal. You will see that eventually he will run out of removal and you'll stick like an arcane golem or healbot on the field. This will allow you to deal a good chunk of damage because he drops to about 10-12 armor, at which point he will remember that he has shield slam ( lol ). Then you simply continue playing minions, ONE AT A TIME. Usually you can stick a kor kron elite or a shieldmaiden that he can't remove and then even if you started out at low HP, you'll destroy him as he fatigues for 5-6+ a turn while you armor up and hit him for 5. Even if he started out at 80hp you'll destroy him with 30+ armor remaining on your side.
Hope this helps!
any replacements for shieldbash and crush?
Bouncing blade, brawl, argent commander, bomb lobber, upgrade, reckless rocketeer.
Shield slam is pretty crucial though as it gives a way to remove anything without taking damage. I'm sure you can do it without it, but it becomes harder.
"above 50% win rate against heroic Nefarius" is very generous. Im on my dozen or so attempt and have yet to live past turn 6-8. Like you said you either make it or you don't, but it looks like you usually don't.
Gonna keep trying will update when I get it or give up on this strat.
Edit: survived past turn 10 but he keeps freeing up room in his hands for more minions.
Out of 10 games now I'm at 60%.
Mulligan for fiery war axe early and then just smash his minions with weapons/spells. He always gets me down to about 4-5 health when I stabilize. Every time I've lost has also been because Ragnaros gave me the 4/5 windfury or the 6/6 taunt. Those do nothing whatsoever so if you don't feel like wasting time you can always restart to see if Rag is more generous next time. The best one is obviously the deal 6 minion.
They key is trying not to lose too much HP early on so that you can armor up later on and then use weapons on minions if you really need to. Save owl for drake too, he's got plenty of them.
Also never play more than 1 minion. He will just start using cleave and flamestrike on them. If you have only one minion, he'll at least use something else ( if he has it ). Having two minions out is completely useless I've found, they die for free and free up his hand.
Thanks for this deck. I'm not going to claim first try like a lot of people, but after a few runs things seemed to fall into place and after one final rocky start I was able to get him to burn up all of his cards. It felt incredibly bad to use weapons just to hit face, even though I did use a lot of weapon charges for removal
Come to think of it, I don't think I ended up using any of the removal packages (due to draw or luck of the draw, what have you), shield slams, executes, and whirlwinds I just ended up blowing at the end when he ran out of room for creatures. Not saying they're not worth it, but if someone lacks bouncing blade or shield slams or something I feel they're replaceable with another rocketeer or something to that effect
Yes almost any charge minion would do. Grommash, argent commander even wolfrider.
Anything that can deal damage to his face or to his minions is good.
Shield slam and execute are in there mostly for consistency. They can remove the 9/9 or 4/10 drakes with just one mana.
I've beaten him 3 times in a row now with this deck. Every time he gets me down to 5-6 life, then runs out of gas and just doesn't use his direct damage he's obviously holding to kill me. He will only kill you with direct damage if one spell kills you on its own....lol
You want to save your weapons for his face, mostly. Brawl is questionable because Nefarius is as evil as he is dumb... and lucky. You can't outluck the luckmaster so brawl never works for me. But one good brawl would just kill him by itself, most likely.
1st try. AWESOME!