As part of the surprising Patch 21.8 release, Blizzard decided to shadow-drop Book of Mercenary’s seventh edition, featuring Scabbs Cutterbutter! His stealthy entrance to the series highlights the ongoing Mercenaries storyline that revolves around the happenings in and around Stormwind.
In this extensive gameplay guide, we will navigate you through the eight different encounters of “Book of Mercenaries: Scabbs”!
Bob the Bartender
The first fight of this Book of Mercenaries campaign revolves around a familiar: Bob the Bartender! The Battlegrounds NPC seems to know everything and everyone in and around Stormwind – a fact that Scabbs tries to use for his investigations.
However, Bob does not give away his secrets for nothing! Compared to earlier BoM iterations, the first encounter of this campaign is extremely hard. As one might expect, Bob only plays Battlegrounds minions, so BG players know what they can expect.
By itself, playing against those BG minions is not the reason why the fight is so hard. It’s actually our deck that sucks so much. Rogue decks never perform well in Hearthstone’s PvE scenarios, and this fight is a great example. In theory, the SI:7 Combo Rogue archetype can’t really keep up even with a semi-decent tempo deck like Bob’s.
That is why you should try to get the most out of Swindle and Shadowstep. Keep the board clear, and know when to hit face if you can’t keep up with the board. Don’t be mad if you lose a game or two against Bob – it’s the deck’s fault! Besides that, Bob deserves some wins anyway, right?
Lady Prestor
The early high difficulty continues with the fight against Lady Prestor, better known as Onyxia – yes, this beautiful noble lady is a dragon in disguise!
The card that single-handedly carried me was Oil Rig Ambusher. Don’t be greedy with its Battlecry and your other face damage tools because you don’t have anything else to offer when it comes to board clear. Again, our deck still sucks, and Katrana’s Dragon Tempo deck is even better than Bob’s Battlegrounds galore.
In the first two fights of this chapter, you also need to know when to enter the “face race”. Despite the overall low quality of our deck, we can deal substantial face damage, so try to keep the board dragon-free, and if you can’t, just try and pull the trigger.
Hogger
On our way through the Stockades, we meet good ol’ Hogger – and also Varden, Horde mage extraordinaire. That and the fact that the game adds a whole lot of value to our deck makes this fight a lot easier compared to the first two.
Steeldancer alone makes our deck so much better! That is why we should go down the Tempo Weapon Rogue route and buff our weapon to the max. Try to mulligan for Swinetusk Shank and early threats like Foxy Fraud. As long as you keep the summoned gnolls off the board, Hogger should be easy to pass!
Warden Thelwater
Don’t get excited for too long – the fight against this particular warden ramps up in difficulty again. That is mostly due to the lock mechanic introduced in this encounter. Thelwater will spawn zero-attack locks that protect him from damage. Those locks have the following deathrattle effects:
- Orange Lock: Adds 3 Coins to your hand.
- Green Lock: Both players draw 2 cards.
- Red Lock: Deal 3 damage to all characters.
- Blue Lock: Freeze both heroes.
- Violet Lock: Spawns a 7/7 Violet Wurm.
As you can see, all effects have more or less obvious upsides and downsides. To be able to deal with the locks, we have a ton of removal as well as the Pick the Lock cards that instantly destroy a lock. You should always wait to use this particular spell because it bypasses the lock that could give you lethal damage – remember, Thelwater is immune while locks are present on the board!
As your overall game plan, you should try to get rid of Thelwater before he’s able to spawn the Violet Lock – dealing with a Violet Wurm is almost impossible. Similar to the fight against Huffer, we should make use of our weapon synergies while keeping the board clear with the rest of our spells and minions. If you can make clever use of the lock deathrattles, you will eventually be able to escape the Stockades!
Sneed
On paper, the fight against the evil goblin Sneed and his hero power looks basically unwinnable: Every minion receives a deathrattle effect that spawns a random legendary minion. Countless Battlegrounds games, however, taught me that legendary minions are pretty bad on average. However, you should still try to avoid early trades against Sneed’s minions.
In addition to that, you should go with Xyrella’s hero power. You want to finish this game as early as possible, and 2 damage for 2 mana are a great deal in the mid-game to extend your lethal reach. Build up your weapon, try to get you Steeldancer + Shadowstep combo going, and go face as early as possible. Apart from that, you basically need an average draw in order to be able to close out the game. In addition to that, a little bit of luck in terms of legendary deathrattle RNG can’t hurt!
Smite
Funnily enough, the sixth fight of this campaign is a piece of cake. Why? Because the cavalry is arriving! At the start of turn 5, Guff and the other Horde mercenaries are entering your side of the board, giving Smite almost no chance of winning. That and the Battleground Masters you should be getting on turn 6 will make quick work of the tauren pirate.
If he happens to lead the board, just replay your high-value mercenaries until the board is yours – always remember: Nothing is stronger than the power of cross-faction friendship!
Cookie the Cook
The difficulty curve remains pretty low after the fight against Smite. In fact, the seventh encounter against Cookie the Cook should be the easiest fight of the campaign.
First off, I chose Tavish’s hero power for this encounter. A 1-mana 1/3 taunt crab definitely fights our tempo playstyle. Also, the fact that you’re now able to play with all Horde mercenaries should net you an easy win against the murloc sous chef. All he has to offer are weird murloc synergies that are easily outrun by your unique mercenary/SI:7 tempo deck!
Edwin VanCleef
In the final fight of the campaign, we have to chase down Edwin VanCleef and his crew to retrieve the mystical naaru shards.
In terms of gameplay, this last fight doesn’t hold any major surprises. The fight starts with Vanessa VanCleef on the board. At first sight, a 1/15 with Poisonous looks intimidating. But it is yet again the power of friendship that saves the day!
Just go all out with your mercenary cards and you should be able to deal with Vanessa. Especially Cariel almost always gets a 2-for-1 trade, and the fact that all mercenaries go back to your hand after defeat turns them into pure value powerhouses.
As soon as Edwin’s daughter is off to Alterac Valley, he doesn’t really pose a threat. Try to optimize positioning to avoid big Betrayal turns by the boss of the Defias Brotherhood – other than that, playing mercenaries on curve should almost always reward you with a win and the successful end of Scabbs’ Book of Mercenaries campaign!
