Hearthstone: Curse of Naxxramas – How to Beat Grand Widow Faerlina

All this week, we’re going through the bosses in the first wing of the Curse of Naxxramas solo adventure. As mentioned in the Anub’Rekhan tips article, the Zoolock deck for Warlock is great against all of the first wing bosses. However, we understand that not every Hearthstone player has access to the Zoolock deck, and there are many players who simply do not favor Warlock in general. For those players, we have a few tips that should help you get through the Grand Widow Faerlina with any character.

If you can defeat the Grand Widow Faerlina, your reward is a set of two Nerub’ar Weblord cards. This is a two-mana, 1/4 card that increases the cost of all minions with Battlecry by two mana. It’s an extremely useful card against a good number of powerful Hearthstone decks. However, to obtain this reward, you need to deal with Faerlina’s hero power.

While Faerlina has a few solid cards in her deck, it’s her hero power that causes problems and makes this match difficult for some players. Her hero power fires a missile for each card in your hand. That means if you’re holding five cards when Faerlina uses her hero power, she will fire five missiles at random enemy targets. This can be devastating if you don’t play the match correctly, since almost every turn she will hit you and your minions for solid damage if you’re not careful.

The best way to defend against Faerlina’s hero power is to create a deck that consists almost entirely of low-mana cards. You’re going to want a few taunt cards in there, as well as some cards that can deal with mid-game threats such as the Necroknight (5/6 with a Deathrattle that destroys the minions next to it), Worshipper (1/4 and gives Faerlina 1 attack every turn) and Dancing Swords (4/4 with a Deathrattle that allows Faerlina’s opponent to draw a card). The Necroknight and Dancing Swords cards can be beneficial to you upon death, but while they’re alive, they pose a considerable threat, especially if you have a large number of low-cost minions to counter Faerlina’s hero power.

Your basic strategy against Faerlina should be to attack early and often. Consider this as a DPS (damage) check or a DPS race. You need to drain her health before she can use her hero power to drain yours. Early on, you need to play as many cards as you can each turn and avoid using draw cards or having cards in your deck that are only effective as a combo. You do not want to be holding cards waiting for that combo card to appear so you can play them. The longer you hold on to cards in your hand, the more damage you’re going to take from Faerlina’s hero power.

Luckily, you don’t have to worry too much about board clearing abilities. Faerlina uses Hellfire, which inflicts three damage to all characters, but other than that, she doesn’t have much that will clear the board. You can overwhelm her with a flurry of low-cost minions, keeping your hand as close to empty as possible and making her hero power relatively ineffective. As long as you can continue to play as many cards as you can with every turn, there isn’t much to worry about in this battle.