Hearthstone: Sapphiron Heroic Guide for Mages

Hello again. Here I am with another guide. Frostwyrm Lair, that is the final and the last wing of Hearthstone adventure Curse of Naxxramas has been released on EU (I play on EU) on Tuesday. With this final release I'm afraid we have to say goodbye to Naxxramas once and for all. I honestly don't believe that most people will actually keep defeating these bosses over and over again as I think Curse of Naxxramas doesn't have high replay value due to relying too heavily on RNG. So I'm pretty sure when anyone is done with Heroic modes, they will NEVER look back on Naxxramas again maybe with the exception of Hunter challenge, it really was the best one in the bunch wasn't it?

Well so let's get right to it. Sapphiron is the first boss in Frostwyrm Lair and he is in fact one of the toughest ones to beat if not THE toughest! I tried to defeat him with a secret heavy Hunter deck but it didn't work for me because I was missing the second Eaglehorn Bow and Skeletal Smith kept destroying my only bow so I couldn't race damage wise. So the next best thing was to try out my incomplete wannabe Freeze Mage deck.

In normal mode Sapphiron has 30 health and his hero power destroys all enemy minions that aren't frozen for 0 mana. This hero power remains the same on heroic difficulty; however, like usual Sapphiron's health increases to 45.

On normal mode, you will have a Frozen Champion on your side of the board who will give immunity to the adjacent minions so they won't die to Sapphiron's Frost Breath. On Heroic mode such Frozen Champion will not exist, so no matter what minion you put on the board will die to Sapphiron's hero power before getting a chance to attack provided they don't have Charge. So a spell heavy deck makes the most sense in a situation like this.

On Heroic, Frozen Champion will not be there to assist you!

Like it wasn't bad enough already; on top of everything Sapphiron has this crazy spell that will deal 8 damage to your hero. The best counter to this spell is pretty obvious: The Mage secret Counterspell!

This is exactly where the secrets of the wonderful Mage class will aid us. Check out the deck I used to defeat Sapphiron on Heroic difficulty. Don't forget that I am missing a lot of cards, I will also talk about them too.

Sapphiron is an encounter that can spiral out of control very quickly. Secrets like Ice Barrier, Vaporize and Ice Block can really make the difference between life and death. You will realise that I don't have Vaporize and Ice Block in the deck, well because I really don't have them. If you have those secrets, add x2 each. Ice Block is especially really useful for this fight. If you have a second Pyroblast don't forget to include it too. It would actually cut the encounter much shorter and would increase your chance of success. Counterspell is an absolute must. Whatever it stops can really make a big difference. Sapphiron uses 3 spells; Frostbolt, Blizzard and Pure Cold. You might feel sore if it stops Frostbolt but if it stops Pure Cold, you will have a great advantage to turn the game around.

Mulligan: Arcane Missiles and Frost Nova would make a pretty good starting hand. Nerubian Egg/Novice Engineer/Mad Scientist as the 3rd card is pretty ideal. Nerubian Eggs are part of a wombo combo with Duplicate so it is important to keep at least 1 Egg for Duplicate otherwise your damage output might not be enough (if you are missing cards like me).

Strategy: You will be playing as a typical Freeze Mage. You will use your Arcane Missiles in early game to try taking out threats like Mana Wyrm or Shade of Naxxramas (pray that RNG will be on your side). By turn 3-4, depending on how intimidating Sapphiron's board looks like, you should start freezing the board if you have Frost Nova. By turn 6 hopefully you will have drawn your Blizzard so you can buy yourself some more time. When Sapphiron's board is completely full, use hard removal like Flamestrike. Anything Sapphiron plays will easily die to Blizzard and then Flamestrike combo so you just need to worry about staying alive as much as you can as there is nothing you can't kill with these AoE spells. It all comes down to using them at the right time.

Counterspell is the key card in this encounter and sadly it will involve a lot of RNG. It could stop a simple Frostbolt or it could stop that dreaded Pure Cold spell which would ultimately save your life and even maybe win the game. When I defeated Sapphiron, both of my Counterspell countered Pure Cold so I was incredibly lucky, thus skilled. Luck shows skill in this game don't forget that! If your Counterspell stops Frostbolt, then you are incredibly unskilled so stop playing this game (I hope you are sensing the sarcasm here)!

When you have enough mana for Duplicate + Nerubian Egg combo, use it. If there is a heavy threat on board, use your Nerubian to kill it instead of going face. In my case Sapphiron had a Spectral Knight with 4 health left, I had 5 cards left in my deck and my hero had 16 health so killing off that Spectral Knight was more important as I was afraid of Fatigue. Sapphiron might use Blizzard on the Nerubians you summoned. So you might wanna hold off on "putting all your eggs in one basket", what I am trying to say is that if you have like 3 Eggs on your hand use 1 or 2 but not all 3 at the same time cause if Sapphiron has Blizzard you can say goodbye to this encounter because that 4 damage might mean defeat or victory (that is only if you lack the second Pyroblast like me otherwise it wouldn't be a big issue). 

For extra damage, hold off on your Ice Lances so you can pair them up with Frostbolt. The idea is to NEVER use your spells like Fireball, Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Pyroblast on minions. All these spells must deal damage to Sapphiron himself. You have to rely on spells like Frost Nova, Blizzard, Cone of Cold and Flamestrike to deal with the minions. If you have to use a Fireball on a minion, just concede now cause you won't have enough damage to kill off Sapphiron.

I tried this encounter about 6 times with this Freeze Mage deck on Wednesday. There was this one time I got very close to killing him. He had 8 health left and I had 4 cards left in my deck. If I top decked a Pyroblast I could have killed him  but I didn't so I suck at this game, I'm incredibly unskilled. I sort of took a break from Naxxramas until I decided to try him again today and voila! First attempt and I kill him. RNG was on my side so I feel pretty skilled at the moment. 

The bottom line is, you might die a couple of times at first. Unfortunately Heroic Naxxramas encounters are broken and they require absolute best RNG on your side, they really don't require skill at all. Just keep trying. Believe me, sooner or later RNG will finally be on your side, the stars will align and you will defeat these bosses!

Good luck! 

PS, Kel'Thuzad Heroic guide will be uploaded later today if my computer allows me to. I'm having issues with bloody Intel Graphics Accelerator something so my display goes on and off. (If anyone knows a fix, let me know please!)