by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

The situation’s starting to look grim for Horde tyrant Garrosh Hellscream. All around him the masses are gathering and grouping up, putting aside old racial hatreds to see the dictator put down. Fortunately, in both World of Warcraft and Hearthstone he’ll have access to some powerful minions and allies to back him up against his impending impeachment. In this Hearthstone preview, we’ll look at the Warrior specific minions, as well as overall strategy when on the battlefield. If you missed it, be sure to check out our look at Warrior spells and abilities.

Minions

The Warrior deck features a decent spread of minions in terms of energy cost. It lacks a one energy creature, but there are other options available to all of the decks. We’ll go into those recommendations later. Unsurprisingly, most of the Warrior minions are high pressure and feature aggressive battlecry mechanics, or charge, Hearthstone’s version of haste. Let’s take a look at some of the better options.

Cruel Taskmaster

The Cruel Taskmaster minion is a neat card with real potential when it comes to cards that feature the enrage mechanic. Enrage activates when a minion takes damage and persists until the minion is dead or has been fully healed. For two energy, Cruel Taskmaster enters the battlefield and deals one damage to a target minion, also awarding it +2 attack. This is on top of a rating of 2/1. The minion can thus be used to activate an enrage card, murder an enemy minion with one health, buff an enemy minion’s attack power to seven in order to make it fodder for the Big Game Hunter card or just serve as a buff for your own minion at the cost of one health. Considering how minion oriented a successful Warrior deck is likely going to be, this is definitely a card worth having around. If you’re running a lot of enrage cards, it’s a must have.

Warsong Commander

There’s nothing complicated about this card, and that’s fine. If you spend three energy, this 2/3 minion will give all of your other minions charge as long as it survives. Intelligent opponents will immediately try and wipe this card off the board, but don’t worry about it. At three toughness, it’s going to demand a reasonable amount of effort to destroy. If it sticks, expect to be able to force significant pressure with the right supporting cast of minions.

Arathi Weaponsmith

This is another relatively straightforward minion, but it packs a punch. For four energy, you get a 3/3 minion that also equips Garrosh with a 2/2 weapon. If you’re searching for something to run at the four energy spot, this or Kor’kron Elite are both solid pickups.

Kor’kron Elite

When they’re not spending their days bullying poor Gamon in Ogrimmar, the Kor’kron Elite can join their considerable strength to your deck. There’s no special mechanic to this guy aside from charge, but at four energy, the Kor’kron Elite boasts a 4/3 rating. He won’t be easy to take down and, more importantly, he can provide a lot of pressure on turn four, assuming you draw him by then. If you’re running a straight up aggressive deck, Kor’kron Elite is a no-brainer.

Grom Hellscream

Thank goodness for Garrosh Hellscream that his father’s only back as a card, as we’re sure he’d have some things to say about what Garrosh has done as Warchief. The Warrior Legendary minion costs a whopping eight energy, but once out has the potential to inflict some serious hurt. Grom enters the battlefield with charge and enrage as a 4/9. Remember that Cruel Taskmaster guy mentioned earlier? He would be amazing here, if you happen to topdeck him, or if you have been holding on to him in order to combo him with the Legendary. Upon enraging, Grom gains an absurd +6 attack, making him a 10/9. This guy is incredibly beefy, and fortunately by turn eight, your opponent should be down a lot of his or her minion murdering cards. If he survives, Grom Hellscream could quite possibly win you the match.

Strategy

We’ve said it a couple of times, but it cannot be stressed enough. Garrosh Hellscream murders people. That’s what he’s good at, and the deck very much reflects that. There’s not much in the way of subtlety, and that can be one of the major weaknesses of the deck, alongside a shortage of ways to deal direct damage to enemy heroes. The deck can also be predictable. After beating an opponent a couple of times, expect them to know what they’re dealing with and try to build around it by including less minions and more spells. Sadly, you cannot Execute, Cleave or Brawl their spells, which is totally unfair. Those weaknesses noted, the deck excels at minion destruction, pressure and hero durability. Garrosh Hellscream will not be easy to take down.

When it comes to fleshing out your deck with cards that are not Warrior specific, try and figure out exactly what you’re going for. If you’d like to run something built around the enrage mechanic, there are a number of good, low cost cards to do so with. Check out Amani Berserker, Raging Worgen and Tauren Warrior. If building a deck around charge is more your style, try running Warsong Commander, Kor’kron Elite and some other reasonably priced minions that will allow you to keep the pressure up. Be sure to account for the possibility though that you might not be able to keep charge up on all your minions. In general though, try and find minions that can correct some of the shortcomings of the Warrior deck without slowing you down. One such example of this would be the Leper Gnome. The 1/1 for one energy deals two damage to enemy heroes upon dying. That’s direct damage, and something the Warrior deck does not have a lot of.

Constantly look to pressure your opponent and make them react to you. Minions, minions, minions, minion destruction, savage beatings. In no time at all, you’ll be looking down at the corpse of your opponent and scowling.

Be sure to check in next week as BlizzPro previews the spiritually serene Shaman deck!