Rend Blackhand Guide with Cheap Decks for Blackrock Mountain

Last updated on Apr 16, 2015 at 17:03 by Sottle 28 comments

Table of Contents

Rend Blackhand is the third and final boss of the Blackrock Spire, the third wing of Blackrock Mountain. In this guide, you will learn how to use cheap decks to defeat Blackhand in both Normal and Heroic modes.

Rend Blackhand Normal Rend Blackhand Heroic
1.

Health, Hero Power, Cards, Etc.

Normal Heroic
Health 30 30 (+15 Armor)
Hero Power
  • Open the Gates costs 2 mana, summons three 1/1 Whelps, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Old Horde costs 2 mana, summons 2 1/1 Old Horde Orcs with Taunt, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Blackwing costs 1 mana, summons a 3/1 Dragonkin, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Dismount costs 4 mana, summons Gyth, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Open the Gates costs 2 mana, summons three 2/2 Whelps, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Old Horde costs 2 mana, summons 2 2/2 Old Horde Orcs with Taunt, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Blackwing costs 1 mana, summons a 5/4 Dragonkin, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
  • Dismount costs 4 mana, summons Gyth, and gives Blackhand another, random Hero Power.
Deck
2.

Strategy and Deck Building

Rend Blackhand is a unique Boss with a cycling Hero Power that rotates between summoning several different sets of undercosted minions. He always stats the fight with his Hero Power in Open the Gates form, so your initial focus should be playing minions that deal with this initial onslaught of minions.

On normal mode, the majority of his summoned minions have 1 health, making cards like Voidwalker, Northshire Cleric, Mortal Coil, Muster for Battle, etc. very effective. If you are able to secure a good opening hand to deal with his first few Hero Power activations effectively, the rest of the fight is fairly straightforward.

One additional aspect of the fight is that Rend Blackhand carries the 1 Mana removal spell The True Warchief, which destroys any Legendary minion. This highly disincentivises you from adding Legendary minions to your deck, with Loatheb being one of the few that can represent value, since its Battlecry prevents him from using the removal spell effectively.

On Heroic mode, his Hero Powers are all significantly upgraded, meaning a long protracted battle for value will often end in defeat. The two viable strategies for defeating Heroic Rend are too simply race him using an aggressive deck like Face Hunter, or to build a deck focused on high value board clears like Hellfire, Shadowflame, Flamestrike, or Equality.

To help you build your decks and defeat Blackhand in both modes, here are decks we defeated him with: