Hearthstone: Naxxramas - Plague Quarter, Noth, Heigan, Loatheb, strategy

If you thought the Arachnid Quarter was a bit too much of a breeze, rest assured that the newly-opened Plague Quarter wing provides a considerably tougher challenge. Things get much easier when you know the answer to the puzzle each boss represents, however, and we've rounded up all the decks and strategies you need to finish off both the Normal and Heroic versions of every fight.

Noth the Plaguebringer

Hero Ability

Normal - Whenever an enemy dies, raise a 1/1 minion (Passive).

Heroic - Whenever an enemy dies, raise a 5/5 minion (Passive).

Noth strategy - Normal

A pretty simple, bog-standard control Priest does a great job of handling all of the Normal mode bosses in the Plague Quarter. If you can open with a Northshire Cleric, you're halfway home as you slowly peel out greater reinforcements to control the board. Look to bring a Lightspawn into play as soon as you can to really pile the pressure onto both Noth and his minions. Try not to over-extend, however, as the Plague spell can quickly wipe your board and leave you struggling for answers to his fresh army of skeletons.

Noth strategy - Heroic

The main challenge when fighting Noth on Heroic difficulty is to deal with the free 5/5 minion he summons for each creature you lose. For this reason, we created a spell-heavy Mage deck that allowed us to control Noth's minions through area-of-effect removal, then boost survival through Secrets, and finally lean on Pyroblasts, Fireballs and charge minions to finish the job off.

Our solution has one very expensive ingredient in it, however: Alexstraza. Once the board is clear, this legendary card is used to bring Noth's health straight down to 15, leaving you free to use your collection of win conditions in order to end the fight.

Reward

The Stoneskin Gargoyle might not pack too much of a punch, but its restorative bonus should certainly give fans of the zoo deck archetype something to think about.

Heigan the Unclean

Hero Ability

Normal - Deal 2 damage to the left-most enemy minion (1 Mana).

Heroic - Deal 3 damage to the left-most enemy minion (0 Mana).

Heigan strategy - Normal

The control Priest we used in the previous fight again works extremely well against Heigan in Normal mode. While that pounding Hero Ability can be a real pain, keep a Lightwell as your minion furthest to the left so you can simply heal it back up each turn, and keep pushing damage straight into his face or into his minions. Just don't miscalculate and bite off more than you can chew - you must make sure you keep this meat-shield alive for the next turn.

Heigan strategy - Heroic

Heigan's excruciating free damage Hero Ability in Heroic mode means there's very little point putting any early game minions on the board. Not only that, you'll have to deal with a 3/4 enemy minion from the very start - one that effectively replaces itself when destroyed.

In order to get ahead of the problem, we created another Mage deck with a few helpful twists. First, we included Ironbeak Owls and Polymorph spells, and you need to find at least one of these two card types in your opening hand, so you can either silence that 3/4 minion's Deathrattle or Polymorph it on turn four.

Otherwise, we fought much as we did against Heroic Noth, clearing out Heigan's minions with area-of-effect removal, then going in for the kill once we'd thinned out his army. The trick this time around is to use your minions with big health to absorb that free damage he throws out to the left-most minion each turn. Make sure you can steadily cycle a new minion into that position each turn, so that the one you laid the turn before gets a chance to shine. Keep developing the board this way until he's dead.

Reward

The Unstable Ghoul is another cheap card that's likely to give fans of aggressive, rush-orientated decks a major problem.

Loatheb

Hero Ability

Normal - Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero (2 Mana).

Heroic - Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero (0 Mana).

Loatheb strategy - Normal

Aside from his unusually high health pool, the fight against Loatheb on Normal mode won't give you too much bother if you carry on using the Priest deck. Holy Novas will help you finish off weaker enemy minions and trigger those damage-boosting spores - just make sure you get new minions into play before triggering the buff.

Loatheb strategy - Heroic

It's Priest to the rescue once again for the Plague Quarter's final Heroic fight, but a Priest with a few new tricks up its sleeve. This useful deck posted on Hearthpwn definitely gets the job done, but you need a little bit of luck in your opening hand. Specifically, you must find Shadow Word Pain at the start of the match, so that you can eliminate the 3/6 taunting minion before your opponent's damage and control gets completely out of hand.

Once the Fen Creeper's dead, you next need to build a very robust health-boosting defence to nullify the effects of his developing board, and his free damage to your Hero's face each turn. This will not be a quick fight (not least because Loatheb's health is now a massive 99 points), but if you can line up a slow but steady attacking force alongside your healing, pick off your opponent's minions, and use your Elven Archers to trigger the spore buffs, you'll get there in the end.

Reward

The recurring benefits of the Sludge Belcher speak for themselves, and should do much to slow Hearthstone's mid-game down.

Class challenges

Once again, the class challenges in the Naxxramas expansion amount to a disappointingly tame affair. Try to use the Mage's Secrets as efficiently as possible, and in synergy with the cards that benefit from playing these special cards. As for the Hunter, this is a very fun fight where you're awarded core beast cards for destroying the class's new weak minions. Just make sure you trigger the standard cards from your deck before playing additional Webspinners.

Plague Quarter reward

Players who defeat the entire Plague Quarter on Normal mode will receive the legendary Loatheb card. One for Mages to lose a little sleep over.

You can find the rest of our Naxxramas boss guides from the first page of this article.