Hearthpwn

Alright! Another wing, another bunch of Heroic Bosses, and for this one, again, I think Priest is the answer!

 

As always: This Guide, inevitably, contains Spoilers regarding the Heroic boss Baron Rivendare from the military quarter! If you want the full experience yourself, stop here and now!

 

Basic Strategy:

Alright guys, so first again, let's look at what special tricks Baron Rivendare got up his sleeves. He starts with 3 cards on the field, Lady Blaumeux, Sir Zeliek and Thane Korth'azz. In basic mode these are 1/7, in Heroic they are 2/7! As one can read in the card text, these have to be destroyed before you can touch Baron Rivendare, who, in Heroic mode, has 14 Health as opposed to the 7 he has in Normal Mode. Aside from that, he will not play a single Minion! That is good to know, as the rest of his cards consist of his Runeblade, which is your prime motivation not to kill of the Horsemen instantly, Removal Spells, including Shadow Bolt, Frost Bolt, Soulfire, Consecration, Corruption et cetera, as well as the Paladin Secrets Avenge, Redemption and Repentance and his Special Horesemen-Themed card Mark of the Horsemen!

What this means is that this deck aims to do 3 things. Trade, Heal, Draw. This, you do until you are in a better spot and gradually wore down his Damage output!

Playstyle:

Basically what you want to do is play on curve, get him to not attack your face constantly and heal up and gradually reduce his damage in the process. The most efficient way of reducing his damage, again, are Shadow Word: Pain cards that just outright get rid of his Horsemen! Since he will not play any more minions, the more you destroy the more he will have to rely on Burn spells to your face to even get lethal damage on you. This, you want to prevent by using your minions regularly and force him to run damage potential into them. It does, as with all heroic bosses, take some attemps to get an okay draw, but as soon as you take over the board and actually have Mana and Cards to play with you basically win.

Be aware that, as opposed to Loatheb, Baron Rivendare will actually aim to trade off your Lightwells and your other bulky minions, since he will usually have some answer in shape of a spell in hand and trade a minion into it afterwards! Minions like Loot Hoarder for example will usually be beaten in by one of the horsemen, if you are unlucky a Mortal Coil comes into play. Anyways, as much as he trades, do not be too sad, it's all damage that does not go to your face!

How to play around silences:

Alright, this is the part that might actually screw you if you do it wrong, and it puts you into a potentially very defensive position.

If you feel the need to play around secrets, thus you can not do lethal damage or assert complete dominance over him by risking a play, you should go as follows:

1. Place a minion that either has, or needs no more then 1 health. This will reveal or disprove the existence of a Repentance Secret.

2. I've had him down to 3 cards and I'm almost sure he runs no Noble Sacrifice or Eye for an Eye, thus, if it's not Repentance, it will trigger upon you dealing lethal damage to a horseman! The danger now lies in him having Avenge and buffing one of his Horsemen to a 5/9. As long as you do not have a silence, do NOT risk that! It will usually really screw you over! If it is Redemption it would be nice to have a way to clear out the reincarnation, but ohwell, a 2/1 horse will eventually be the least of your problems.

Do not use your silences lightly!

 

You run a bunch of Silences, and one nice thing to do with them, especially Mass Dispel, is to just get rid of the Horsemen's effect and Start hitting the Baron's squishy face, right? Yeah, sort of right. I can only advice you to, just as the rest of the battle demands, take patience when using your silences. Mark of the Horsemen and Avenge both want to be silenced away immediately to not give you a really hard time! Who knows, maybe you even get rid of the Horsemen Manually and one of your Frozen minions can be silenced to finish the Job! Mass Dispel into Burst is a nice thing to have, but aside from that never use your Silences, especially the 0 mana cost card Silence without immediate impact, it's just not worth it!

But you're crazy! Why would you not include:

 

Cabal Shadow Priest: Well, yes, your hero does turn immune. However, Baron Rivendare runs Shadow Word: Pain as well, and he is very greedy with them, will just about never use them if any other removal spell kills, or almost kills your Minions. I already have a hard time justifying Holy Nova and Holy Light regarding their cost, but they heal! Cabal Shadow Priest is just outright to expensive and does an only okay job. Any combination of 1-2 Mana cards + Hero power probably do a better job for 6 mana! That is only my experience though, it feels clumsy, you have to draw it around the perfect turn. Try it, it's not bad, it just doesn't feel ideal either!

Ironbeak Owl: You have enough silence and your Minions should either draw, heal or be beefy. The owl does neither. Boo.

A second Northshire Cleric: Whew. I had them in there initially and just traded one out for an Ooze, just because the Ooze can get rid of, usually, 6 points of damage! 2 Stacks of the Runeblade, 2 health body. You rarely ever want to heal anything that is not your face, you draw enough cards already and you do not run Circle of Healings. I had two clerics in there initially but this time one had to go. The only reason one stays is for the hypothetical chance of topdecking something off of it in a bad situation.

As with all heroic bosses I want to point out again that they are supposed to be given extremely unfair mechanics, and that yes, you will need a proper draw to win! All one can offer you is a deck with a good chance, and this one stands an around 50% win rate for me so far! Hang in there if it doesn't work initially, that's all the challenge is there for.

Alright, video is soon to be uploaded, I hope everything works out for you and is well understandable. If not so, contact me here or on the EUW Server, Vijce#2689, and good luck defeating the four Horsemen!

 

Changelog:

 

06/08/2014: Got rid of one Holy Nova and the Sen'jin Shieldmasta for 2 Deathlords. They are the absolutely perfect fit for this deck and the only reason I didn't include them is I totally forgot we got them this week! At worst they eat a Shadow Word: Pain, at best they are incredibly good at protecting you from quite some damage. Also may make you want to reconsider Cabal Shadow Priest, as drawing his Shadow words makes them potentially so much stronger, allowing your stolen horsemen not to be removed for free! Thanks to several users for that suggestion!