Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft — The League of Explorers guide: How to beat Temple of Orsis

The Temple of Orsis awaits!

The first wing of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft’s newest adventure, The League of Explorers, is out now. This guide will help you beat all of the bosses inside so you can earn those new cards.

Note that these strategies only cover the normal versions of each fight. The Heroic battles are much harder and typically require custom-built decks.

Guide index

• Temple of Orsis
• Uldaman
• The Ruined City
• Hall of Explorers

Zinaar

Hero power: Djinn’s Intuition (Draw a Card, give your opponent a Wish.)

Your first battle is pretty easy. Zinaar’s Hero power let’s him draw a card every turn for 0 mana, but it also gives you a Wish card, which lets you pick between one of three cards (either a minion or spell). This ensures that you’ll always have a decently full hand, so don’t play a deck with spells and minions that help you draw cards.

Make sure you’re playing enough cards that your hand doesn’t become full. For this reason, playing an aggressive deck with a lot of low-cost minions is smart. However, you could still be fine with slower decks, just make sure you stick to a good mana curve. Another good option is a midrange deck that gives you options to destroy enemy minions and control the board. I cleared this one easily with a Tempo Paladin deck. Tempo means a deck between aggressive and Control (designed for longer games).

Sun Raider Phaerix

Passive hero power: Blessings of the Sun (Whoever controls the Rod of the Sun is Immune.)

Phaerix starts with the Rod of the Sun on his board. It’s a 0/5 minion with a Deathrattle that summons the same card on the other player’s side. Whoever has it is Immune, so this whole round is all about taking out the Rod on your opponent’s board and then hitting his face.

Phaerix can play a Minion called Tol’vir Hoplite, a 5/2 card with a Deathrattle that deals 5 damage to bother heroes. Just make sure you kill it while you have the Rod, and you’ll deal some easy damage.

You can also use cards like the Paladin’s Blessing of Kings to power up your Rod when you control it, giving it the ability to fight and making it harder for Phaerix to take out. Again, midrange decks such as Hunter work well here, as they can help you control the board and dish out some damage. However, my Tempo Paladin deck still did the trick here, especially thanks to the Avenge Secret buffing up my Rod of the Sun.

Temple Escape

Hero power: Escape! (Encounter new obstacles!)

This is a new kind of Hearthstone battle. Your opponent doesn’t have any cards, but it can use his 0 mana Hero power every turn, which can summon minions to his board. Other things will happen every turn. Sometimes they’re helpful, like having the choice to pick between gaining a Mana Crystal or drawing a card. Other times you need to pick between two evils, like taking 5 damage to your Hero or taking a random amount of damage (1 through 10).

This goes on for 10 turns. Your opponent has no health, so you just need to survive that long. Keep in mind, since your opponent has no cards, you’ll win all Jousts, so playing a Control deck with those can help. Also, you just need to stay alive, so a deck with Spells that heal you can help a lot. Halfway through (at 5 turns left to escape), the ceiling will collapse. This will destroy all of the minions on both sides of the board, so plan accordingly. One good idea on this turn is to play minions with Deathrattle, such as Haunted Creeper or Piloted Shredder, so you have a board presence after the rocks come down.

The enemy minions can become pretty tough, so make sure you have spells and minions that can clear out or incapacitate some of them. A Mage’s Polymorph Spell or the Paladin’s Aldor Peacekeeper can help here. Otherwise, just play a deck with plenty of minions and spells that protect your Hero, either by healing or using Taunts and Secrets to make it harder for the enemy to target you. Once again, I did just fine with my handy Tempo Paladin deck, especially thanks to the Sacrifice Secret protecting my hero from some heavy hits.