Hearthstone: Curse of Naxxramas – How to Beat Heigan the Unclean

The second week of Blizzard’s solo adventure expansion for Hearthstone, Curse of Naxxramas, consists of the Plague Quarter. If you haven’t already, take a look at our tips for defeating Noth the Plaguebringer, the first boss of the Plague Quarter. Once Noth is down, you can move on to Heigan the Unclean.

Heigan is a Warlock class, which means you should expect a number of standard issue Warlock cards. Bane of Doom, Blood Imp, Flame Imp, Demonfire, Soulfire, Voidcaller and Voidwalker will all make appearances. In addition, Heigan uses an Acidic Swamp Ooze, so be careful if you’re using a class that has a few weapons (Warrior, Rogue, Paladin). You’ll also see a couple Faceless Manipulator cards, so watch out when you play a good card during or after turn five.

Aside from playing this like a normal battle against a Warlock, you need to be aware of Heigan’s hero power, Eruption. It deals two damage to your left-most minion and he uses it almost every turn. Any minions that have two health or less should not be positioned on the left if you can avoid it. You want minions with enough health to withstand Eruption, or you can expect that minion to die on Heigan’s next turn.

Heigan will not hesitate to use Mindpocalypse, which is a two-mana card that makes both players draw two cads and gain a Mana Crystal. He has at least two Mindpocalypse cards and they speed up the game considerably. Not only will you gain access to your cards faster, you’ll also have more Mana Crystals to work with. Because of this, you don’t need to worry as much about having draw cards in your deck. While they are still useful, there’s a high probability you’re going to get at least four cards from Heigan during the match.

The basic strategy you need to defend against when battling Heigan is an early rush down tactic. He’ll use Minpocalypse to speed the game up, and may start with two Deathcharger cards. These one-mana charge cards are 2/3 with a Deathrattle that deals three damage to Heigan. Obviously killing off the minions will work in your favor, but couple two of them with two Voidwalkers (all of which can be played by turn four) and you may have a problem on your hands if you’re not prepared for it.

The Arachnid Quarter was easily bested with a Zoolock Warlock deck, and that holds true for Heigan as well. However, any aggro deck (a deck designed to quickly deal damage to an opponent) works well against Heigan. He doesn’t have a lot of truly threatening cards in his deck. The Doomguard and Dread Infernal are really the only two cards that can be very damaging if left alone. Doomguard is a 5/7 charge card that costs five mana, while the six-mana Dread Infernal is a 6/6 card with a Battlecry that inflicts one damage to all other characters.

As long as you have a way to deal with the Doomguard and Dread Infernal, and can handle the early rush down of Heigan’s deck, there isn’t much he can throw at you. Have your own aggro deck ready and a Polymorph or some other card to deal with Heigan’s late-game minions and this is a relatively easy battle. Defeat Heigan to earn the Unstable Ghoul card. It’s a two-mana taunt minion with 1/3 and a Deathrattle that inflicts one damage to all minions.