Hearthstone’s League of Explorers: Uldaman guide

Welcome to week two of the League of Explorers! Reno and company need your help in their quest to assemble the Staff of Origination. This adventure introduces a number of new cards along with the Discover mechanic. The second wing consists of three encounters and one of them features that nifty survival mode with the Mine Cart Rush. Go ahead and give the adventures a shot on your own first but if you get stuck, check back here to the guide along with a few recommendations.

Druid and Paladin class challenges can be unlocked once you’ve cleared out normal.

Rewards from Uldaman

• Tunnel Trogg
• Ethereal Conjurer
• Mounted Raptor (Druid Class challenge)
• Tomb Spider
• Unearthed Raptor
• Fierce Monkey
• Reliquary Seeker
• Keeper of Uldaman (Paladin Class challenge)
• Excavated Evil
• Brann Bronzebeard

Chieftain Scarvash

In the first wing, you’ll be squaring off against Chieftain Scarvash, a Trogg. Uldaman was always infested with Troggs. His hero power will render either minions or spells to be much more expensive than their original cost. This does not affect weapons.

Rewards: Tunnel Trogg, Ethereal Conjurer

Normal mode

On normal mode, Scarvash’s Hero Power will result in either our minions or spells costing 2 more mana than usual. Paladin, Warrior, or Shaman decks should provide you with options here with their weapons. The game plan in this first encounter is to stick to straight board control and mop the floor. If you’re out of cards to play or are unable to play anything, there’s always the Hero Power. Put together a deck with minions and spells that provide extra value either via Battlecry or Deathrattle effects. You want to be able to do something, anything. Make sure you load up with a roughly balanced deck.

Heroic mode

Things really ramp up on heroic mode. He has the usual extra 15 armor, but not only that, he starts with a Burly Rockjaw Trogg and a Stonesplinter Trogg in play! Scarvash almost always tends to cast Confuse on his turn 2. Be liberal with the Ironbeak Owls. One of his traps is a Dart Trap that could make it painful for you or your minions when you use your hero power. Expect this matchup to take several concessions. I kept conceding until I was able to play a Doomsayer that went off successfully.

Matt’s deck: Warrior

Mine Cart Rush

The Mine Cart escape is the second encounter in the wing. Unlike last week’s Temple Escape, you are restricted to a specifically designed deck. In addition, you only get two mana crystals and all of your cards cost 1 mana. Your general strategy is to try to throw out minions early on and fight for some semblance of board control. Save your Booms if you can for when there’s many more minions in play. Don’t worry about the 2/6 Chasing Troggs. The ones with 4 attack (Earthen Pursuers) or 6 attack (Lumbering Golems) are generally a bigger threat and should be dealt with.

Rewards: Tomb Spider, Unearthed Raptor

Normal mode

Mechanical Parrots don’t have taunt, so you can use them to help you clear out or soften up the stronger Lumbering Golems. Try to play at least one Spiked Decoy if you can. Use Boom sparingly. Whatever minions you have should be used to attack Earthen Pursuers or Lumbering Golems.

Heroic mode

Stick to the same strategy as normal. Try to resist using Barrel Forward and Repairs until a little later in the match with maybe 3 or 4 turns remaining. Your opening turns should be spent developing your board and throwing up Spiked Decoys or Parrots. Save Boom with maybe 6 to 4 turns remaining. Hopefully you have minions that you can use to run them against the Lumbering Golems. Boom can finish them up. This might take you a few tries until you get the hang of it or manage to come into a fortunate draw.

Archaedas

The last encounter is against Archaedas. His hero power summons 0/2 statues for both players. After a few turns, he’ll cast Shattering Spree on a target which destroys all statues and deals 1 damage for each statue destroyed in such a manner. Usually he’ll target you, but if you have a fair number of minions on the board, he might play it against those instead. Archaedas also runs a secret and it happens to be Sacred Trial. Make sure you pop it with a disposable minion.

Rewards: Fierce Monkey, Reliquary Seeker, Brann Bronzebeard, Excavated Evil

Normal mode

You’ll want to put buff cards in your deck. Minions like Defender of Argus or Dire Wolf Alpha will turn those useless statues into an offensive force. Ideally, you want to run them into his minions so that your statues will get destroyed. Warlock cards offer alternative ways of getting rid of your own minions such as via Power Overwhelming. Druids have access to Poison Seeds. You’re going to need to run a balance of maintaining board supremacy and dealing damage to Archaedas.

Heroic mode

On heroic mode, the Earthen Statues he summons for himself are 0/5 while yours remains at a paltry 0/2. Shattering Spree deals 3 damage per statue to a target now. Remember that you’re getting minions every turn but also losing them after a short while. I recommend classes that can buff existing minions. Druid, Paladin, and Priest decks should give you some extra longevity. In the video below, I went with a Druid list containing cards that can buff all of my minions or some of them. There’s a few neutral minions that can do the same thing like Abusive Sergeant or Dark Iron Dwarf. Keep a close eye on your health total at all times. Check the number of statues every turn.

• Hint: There are only two copies of Shattering Spree in his deck.

Matt’s heroic deck: Druid

I have to say, Chieftain Scarvash on heroic is easily one of the toughest adventure mode encounters. These ones can be frustrated because you do need to hit the right card draws. For completing the wing, you’ll get access to Brann Bronzebeard in your collection. I suspect we’ll be seeing some new deck archetypes involving Brann soon enough. In addition to Brann, Unearthed Raptor is going to be amazing in Rogue decks. A hot fix went out recently to resolve a bug that crashed the client. It was possible to play Dancing Swords followed by an Unearthed Raptor which is followed by another Unearthed Raptor that gets Shadowstepped back into  hand before it gets copied again. The number of Deathrattle effects on a minion is now 16. Mounted Raptor appears to be an upgrade for Druid decks and adds another three drop minion into their arsenal. Control Paladin decks will look for ways to insert Keeper of Uldaman into decks as they can be used to neutralize opposing minions or buff your Silver Hand Recruits.

What classes or decks have you used to defeat these encounters? I’m always curious to see what other players are using.