Hearthstone Rafaam Unleashed

[Vlad 411]

This thread is for comments about our Rafaam Unleashed guide for League of Explorers.

[Guest Guest]

Faceless on the immune guy is such win, anyway did it on 4th try and missing like most of the removals + sylv, still doable

[Guest Ryoga]

Faceless on the immune guy is such win, anyway did it on 4th try and missing like most of the removals + sylv, still doable

Yeah I facelessed the immune guy, was happy I won, then he stole/put it in his deck ><

Won on 2nd try when i hit his 15/15 with sylv and then killed him with it.

[Guest Ravito]

any good replacement for faceless?

[Guest Max]

any good replacement for faceless?

*facepalm*

[positiv2 953]

 

 

any good replacement for faceless?

*facepalm*

 

This is one of the moments when I am sad I can't "Like" a guest's post.

 

any good replacement for faceless?

The deck is Rafaam's deck. The decks that should be used are bit lower.

[Guest Guest]

In Rafaam Unleashed, you do use your own deck. Heroic Arch-Thief Rafaam is the encounter where he steals yours.

 

What are your thoughts on using Naturalize in this deck? In practice, the downside is really no worse than Mulch, and it gives you more flexibility.

[Bob21117 15]

I defeated Heroic Rafaam Unleashed with these F2P decks.

Rafaam's hero power makes him untouchable for three turns and then produces an overpowered 10/10 minion you have to deal with immediately. This mechanic can make the fight quite long and annoying.
Both your and his hero power are to some extent random leading to situations where you just cannot win, e.g. Scarvash on your turn 4, Faceless Manipulator on a hero power minion or your hero power not producing single target removal in the early turns.
Your hero power will eventually produce two spells for single target removal and two spells for board control. Because it generates cards you will never need card draw in this match.
Important information that I nearly oversaw once is Phaerix's (the minion) interaction with taunts: As long as Phaerix is alive all of Rafaam's minions are immune. This means, taunts will no longer work, because they cannot be targeted. Instead you can always attack Phaerix or Rafaam directly.
There are two viable strategies to win this fight with basic decks: You can either control all of Rafaam's actions with spells and your special hero power to outlast him (Priest). Or you can establish permanent board control via minions and eventually end the fight with burst damage (Shaman).

F2P Priest (0 Dust)
Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GggkCBU2lUA

2x Mind Vision
2x Power Word: Shield
2x Divine Spirit
2x Jeweled Scarab
2x Museum Curator
2x Shadow Word: Pain
1x Brann Bronzebeard
2x Shadow Word: Death
2x Darkscale Healer
2x Excavated Evil
2x Gurubashi Berserker
2x Holy Nova
2x Summoning Stone
2x Entomb
2x Mind Control
1x Rafaam

Mulligan for Shadow Word: Death. Then keep Jeweled Scarab, Museum Curator.
Combine Brann with your Discover minions. Try to Discover Shadow Word: Death, Thoughtsteal and Sylvanas Windrunner.
Use your special hero power as often as possible to find even more answers to the 10/10s.
Keep in mind that Rafaam's deck includes Entomb meaning that your first big minion is likely to get stolen.
Turn 2: Jeweled Scarab, Museum Curator.
Turn 4: Shadow Word: Death.
Turn 8: Shadow Word: Death, Entomb.
Difficulty: Medium (may take up to 10 tries).

 

Deck changes for Normal Mode: Replace Arch-Thief Rafaam with Voodoo Doctor.


F2P Shaman (0 Dust)

2x Rockbiter Weapon
2x Elven Archer
1x Windfury
2x Flametongue Totem
2x Jeweled Scarab
2x Murloc Tidehunter
2x Hex
1x Brann Bronzebeard
2x Razorfen Hunter
2x Shattered Sun Cleric
2x Dragonling Mechanic
2x Rumbling Elemental
2x Windspeaker
2x Bloodlust
2x Fire Elemental
1x Everyfin Is Awesome
1x Arch-Thief Rafaam

Mulligan for Hex. Then keep Jeweled Scarab, Murloc Tidehunter.
Combine Brann with Jeweled Scarab. Try to Discover Hex.
Use your special hero power as often as possible to find more answers to the 10/10s.
Do not play too many expensive minions at the same time. Combine Fire Elemental with Windfury.
Fill your board with cheap minions and play Bloodlust even for only 20 face damage. Rafaam will play Flamestrike and Twisting Nether eventually so you have to push through a lot of damage quickly. You still have the potential to reflood the board.
Difficulty: Medium (may take up to 10 tries).

 

Deck changes for Normal Mode: Replace Arch-Thief Rafaam with Everyfin Is Awesome.

[Guest Sanniey]

Thanks a lot Bob21117 - got it on the first try with that priest deck! Some luck involved but a serious calculation with my Gurubashi Berserker and a attack doubler sealed the deal. 

[Guest Gavin]

Thanks Bob21117 for the priest deck - got it on the 7th try. Need to mulligan hard for the combo as mentioned above. Lucky for me, he played Deathwing from unstable portal and I had entomb on my hard. Try to get entomb, shadow word: death in your hand and hope for the best. 

 

[Guest savvynow]

Thank you Bob for that priest deck, worked for me on the 4th try or so! It also helped to watch the youtube video to know how to work with the deck. But it seems I also got very lucky. I had a Shadow Word: Death in my hand at the beginning and drew the second one only a bit later. So I could finish the first 10/10 off for a very low cost.

 

(What a fun Captcha Code btw, haha)

[Guest FrostByte]

Heroic Rafaam

 

Couldn't say this is a F2P deck, I just took what I had, but it's based off a Mill Rogue I saw in play at some point.

 

Shadowstep x2

Conceal x1

Pit Snake x2

Betrayel x2

Evicerate x2

Gang Up x2

Sap x2

Doomsayer x1

Garrison Commander x1

Brann Bronzebeard x1

Coldlight Oracle x2

Emperor Cobra x2

Assassinate x2

Antique Healbot x1

Azure Drake x1

Loatheb x1

Vanish x1

Emperor Thaurissan x1

Kidnapper x1

Chromagus x1

Kel'Thuzad x1

 

Pretty simply I kept both hands at quite a high quantity, an it's especially good to have Rafaam at 10 cards when he summons the massive 10/10 as any of the board removal works a treat.  Pit Snakes and Emperor Cobras both excellent for additional, cheap large minion clearing.

 

Kel'Thuzad and Chromaggus were both reasonably useless, but they can be useful depending on how the match plays out.

 

Gang Up would be interesting, but if you can think of a better spell then take it, not once did I ever draw into any of the 10/10s that I used it on.

 

Garrison Commander never got played, but you can see his use.

 

Emperor Thaurissan did his fair share of work.

 

Mulligan for the low cost stuff and draw into the high cost.

 

But it worked!

[CaptLando 26]

I defeated Heroic Rafaam Unleashed using my Elise-Reno Druid in just 3 attempts.

 

 

The only cards that I had two of in the deck were Innervate and Wild Growth. My opening hand had both Wild Growths and an Innervate, so I had plenty of mana to work with and got the doubles out of the way. Elise and Reno themselves played little to no part in the win. I did play Elise, but I never drew the map. I did not draw Reno. I included Savage Combatant. This gave my hero some semblance of the traditional druid hero power, giving me another attacker to take out smaller minions. For example, I turned his first 10/10 boss, Slitherspear, into a pit snake and killed him with my hero, sparing my larger minions. As for discovery cards, I'd look for hard removal. I'd always go for a spell when using Raven Idol, and Mulch was a common option which I quickly snatched up. I used the Mulch on Archaedas...but it gave Rafaam an Archmage Antonidas. I killed him off asap with a couple minions.

 

There were a couple of turns where RNG favored me. These may have been the reasons that I won.

 

T3, Rafaam played Burgle. T4, he played Astral Communion, which was created by Burgle. It brought him up to 10 mana crystals, however, discarded his entire hand. I was okay with that! I was already up to 7 mana crystals myself.

 

Three out of four Unstable Portals (from Medivh's Locket) gave me some pretty awesome minions, including Clockwork Giant and Gruul.   (Unfortunately, Gruul didn't last long. Keeper of Uldaman reduced him to a 3/3, and one of the boss minions killed him, but not before he took down an Obsidian Destroyer!)

 

Another bit of luck gave me a free Mind Control from Khadgar's Pipe. I used it on a buffed (20/20) Skelesaurus Hex. He was reduced to a 3/3 next turn from a Keeper of Uldaman, but I kept him alive to grant me a free card each turn!

 

So a lot of it is RNG-based. That T4 Astral Communion was huge! One tip I can share is to keep Rafaam's board clear, as much as possible. For any spell that destroys a random minion, you want his boss minion to be the only possible target at the time you play it. Also, try to never leave a taunt standing. If Sun Raider Phaerix comes out while Rafaam has a taunt, and you don't have removal, well...that's a tough scenario to beat.

 

Edited for typos

Edited April 29, 2016 by CaptLando