How to defeat Prophet Velen in Hearthstone’s Book of Heroes: Anduin single-player adventure

The encounter against Prophet Velen in Hearthstone’s Book of Heroes single-player adventure encapsulates exactly what it feels like to play against a Priest in Hearthstone. Velen plays very defensively, he uses a lot of heals, and he’ll resurrect his minions.

His strategy is simple: he’s playing the long game, surviving until he becomes impossible to kill.

If you’re trying to defeat Velen in Book of Heroes, your goal is also simple, at least in theory: kill him as fast as humanly possible.

Build your board for card draw

You want — nay, you need to get a very fast start. Ideally, you’ll be drawing a lot of cards early on, finding Northshire Cleric as well as your cheap minions and healing spells.

Mulligan for card draw

The ideal starting hand includes Northshire Cleric, Tired Recruit, and Circle of Healing. Since the Tired Recruit is damaged when he’s played, you can immediately use the Circle to draw at least a card from the Northshire. If you can manage to find both your Tired Recruits on the first few turns, even better.

Keep your board healed

Velen’s Hero Power is Blessed Cycle:

• Deal 2 damage to all enemy minions. If any die, draw a card.

He’ll be using that Hero Power a lot — but you can (and should) use it to your advantage. You need to ensure that, as long as your Northshire Cleric is on the board, you never finish your turn with minions at less than 3 health. To that end, you should use your healing effects from spells, your hero power, and even cards that increase the health of your minions, such as Beaming Sidekick and Power Word: Shield.

By doing that, whenever Velen uses his Hero Power, you should start your next turn with a lot of damaged minions. And damaged minions plus healing equals card draw. You can see where I’m going with this: You will be drawing a lot, and fast, at these early turns.

Sometimes, you should use healing even when you don’t need to. For instance: Holy Ripple is technically a board control card, since it deals damage to enemy minions as well as healing to your own minions. But for this strategy, you might strongly consider using it just for its healing effect. If you have a lot of damaged minions and no other cheap heals to cast, this one will do in a pinch, and it might even draw you multiple cards.

Draw your finishers early and use them

“And what are we trying to find with all of this drawing, anyway?”

I’m glad you asked, dear reader. You are looking to draw your tools that allow your minions to transform their health, and your healing, into damage to Velen’s face. Namely: Topsy Turvy and Inner Fire, which will pair nicely with minions that are as healthy as possible in order to convert that health into attack. This is your most reliable way to close the game.

You also have an alternative way to win, albeit one that is usually harder to pull off. You have two minions that grow stronger as you heal things: Lightwarden and Holy Champion, which can become pretty powerful. Try not to rely too much on these minions as a strategy: they take much more time to build up, and time is a luxury that you don’t have on this fight. If the game grows too long, Velen will be able to easily dismantle your board every turn.

Lightsteed can be used to help you gain even more health in order to set up a big finisher. Don’t depend on it, but if you have the chance to play it and heal something on the same turn, it’s often worth it.

Stormwind Knight can also help by giving you a tempo boost, since it can often clear a minion as it’s played, and then survive with 3 or more health to help on your strategy. In fact, Stormwind Knight combined with Inner Fire (and preferably some other health-increasing effects) can deal a lot of immediate face damage if you need it.

Don’t let the fight drag out

Even though it’s one of your main finishers, don’t save up your Topsy Turvy for a big combo later on. If you grab it early and you have a minion with 5 or 6 health that can attack, you should use it immediately. You need as much damage to Velen’s face as possible as early as possible. If you have a turn where you can spare attacks to his face rather than his minions, you should seize the opportunity.

Some of the minions he plays can be annoying to deal with, especially the Augmented Elekk. If you can, kill the Elekk quickly with minion hits. But don’t waste too many of your resources on it. Let it live for a few turns if needed — remember, your primary goal is to close the game quickly.

It’s true that some amount of luck will be necessary on this fight. If you don’t get all the healing cards early on, and end up not drawing as much as it’s necessary, you might become unable to close the game quickly enough. But this strategy of leaving your minions healthy and healing them a lot early on has been consistent for me.

So draw those cards early, keep your minions always at 3 health or more, and transform all that health (and some of that healing) into attack before Velen allows the game to turn in his favor. May the Light be on your side (more than his)!