Continuing in the series of posts about how to beat the Heroic bosses in Hearthstone’s Naxxramas adventure, here’s Thaddius!

Heroic Thaddius has two advantages over Normal Thaddius.

First, he’s got 15 more health than the Normal version.

Second, on his first turn he automatically summons his own Feugen and Stalagg.

While he may start with two immense monsters, the good news is that they can’t attack on the turn he summons them and they don’t trigger their own deathrattles.

Even better, Thaddius’ Feugen and Stalagg will trigger your own versions of those minions. So if his Feugen has died and your Stalagg dies, then Thaddius is summoned to your side of the field.

Thaddius starts with a big advantage and this is the deck I came up with to remove that advantage as quickly as possible:
Hunter’s Mark x2
Arcane Shot x2
Tracking x2
Webspinner x2
Explosive Trap x2
Freezing Trap x2
Misdirection x2
Mad Scientist x2
Nerubian Egg x2
Eaglehorn Bow
Animal Companion x2
Deadly Shot x2
Unleash the Hounds x2
Multishot x2
Feugen
Stalagg
Kel’Thuzad

The ideal hand includes a Misdirection or a Tracking. You go first and play the Tracking if you need to find a Misdirection.

Thaddius goes second and summons Feugen and Stalagg.

Your turn comes around again and you play Misdirection.

Thaddius goes. He plays a minion and then attacks with Feugen and Stalagg. The Misdirection triggers and you pray that the two beasties kill each other. It’s a 1/3 chance that they will.

And that’s it. The deck has a few other methods for removing Feugen and Stalagg. Then it stalls the game out with secrets until you can gain complete control with a big Unleash the Hounds combo or by playing your own Feugen and Stalagg and getting a huge Thaddius on your side.

Really once you’ve got a Thaddius on the board you’ve probably won.

Other things that work really well against Heroic Thaddius are Nerubian Egg, Dire Wolf Alpha, Raid Leader, and Stormwind Champion.

Thaddius’ Polarity Shift hero power will always trigger Nerubian Egg, making it a cheap 4/4.

The Polarity Shift also interacts strangely with buffs that the other three cards have. The buffed attack (or attack and defense for Stormwind) is switched to defense, creating a permanent gain in stats. Then the buff is applied to the attack once again. If it keeps switching then your minions keep getting more stats. Leokk from the Animal Companion spell also takes advantage of this effect.

Cards to avoid against Thaddius are ones with zero attack. The Shaman is pretty bad because his hero power will be close to useless. Flametongue Totem will have the same swapping power that Dire Wolf Alpha does, but it dies in the process.

Regardless, the Hunter deck works and isn’t too expensive to craft. Plus, secrets are always fun!

-Mister Ed