Anub'Rekhan

Anub'Rekhan is a boss found in the Curse of Naxxramas adventure. He is the first boss of the adventure's first wing, the Arachnid Quarter.

Decks
The below classes are listed purely for reference, and have no effect on the boss' use of the cards during the battle.Normal and Heroic

Normal
On Normal difficulty, the key to defeating Anub'Rekhan is to not get overrun in the early game. His 2-cost 3/1 Nerubian will trade efficiently with most of your cheap minions, and Nerub'ar Weblord will make it considerably harder to play minions like Novice Engineer or Elven Archer. In addition, Anub'Rekhan has spells like Frostbolt and Mortal Coil and minions like Haunted Creeper to ensure he has complete control of the board in the early stages.

Thus, if you cannot play your own minions, the only way to survive is to eliminate his early minions. The best classes for this are mage and rogue. Mage's Hero Power can destroy his 3/1 Nerubian, negating Anub'Rekhan's otherwise very powerful Hero Power. The mage also should take advantage of spells like Arcane Missiles, Arcane Explosion, and of course Frostbolt to keep his minions off the board. Turn 3 Secrets are also a good way to prolong and secure your survival. Rogues can also use their Hero Power to eliminate Nerubians (although it will cost some Health), and should make use of Backstab, Deadly Poison, Shiv, Blade Flurry, Fan of Knives, and 7 Agent to avoid getting overrun.

If you can make it to turn 4 or 5 with either of these classes without losing much Health, then you have pretty much won. Anub'Rekhan does not have much of a late game. He may put up cards like Deathlord or Abomination to try to stop you. Rogues should Assassinate or Eviscerate these cards, as they can take advantage of the positive Deathrattles. Mages can use Fireball or Ice Lance to kill these cards if they really want or need the Deathrattle effect, but it is often better to save those cards for the endgame and just use Polymorph to be done with it. Anub'Rekhan may also play Shade of Naxxramas, but you need not worry too much about it as it develops slowly and is in general easy to deal with after its Stealth is broken.

Once you get to turns 6 and 7, you begin to have access to some powerful minions, combos, and (for mages) board clears that Anub'Rekhan has no answer to. Taunt minions are especially effective, because he has to run all his puny minions into them, which will probably flip board control in your favor. The best is probably Sunwalker, which would take all 3 of his Locust Swarm spells to destroy, and her 4 attack will crush most of his minions. Anub'Rekhan also has no hard removal in his deck, so he will likely not be able to remove late game threats with high Health, such as Gruul, Ragnaros the Firelord, giants, any of the dragons, and even common cards like Boulderfist Ogre. Make sure you have some powerful minions like those in your deck to get board control and chip away at his Health. Once you get his Health low enough, finish him with Fireball or Leeroy Jenkins.

Hunter can be a viable class to use as well, thanks to cards like Arcane Shot, Explosive Trap, Eaglehorn Bow and Unleash the Hounds being useful in staying competitive early. However, be warned that Anub'Rekhan can play Nerubian Egg, which could punish you for an early Explosive Trap. Emperor Cobra, Hunter's Mark and Deadly Shot are strong options to deal with an early drop of Deathlord, which can provide the hunter with a quick minion advantage.

Heroic
''Please note: most of the above strategies for Normal mode also apply to Heroic mode, with minor changes. Below are some alternative strategies for Heroic mode.''

One approach is to build a paladin deck with lots of Battlecry healing effects, weapons, and cards that lower minions' Attack to 1. Essentially, you want to fill the boss side with 1 Attack minions so that he cannot summon anything larger. Once Anub'Rekhan's side is full (7 minions) you can focus on self-healing and using weapons to directly attack him.


 * Decklists
 * Hearthpwn.com - The Arachnid Quarter Heroic Boss Deck Guides
 * Hearthhead.com - Decks for Defeating Anub'Rekhan

Dialogue
Before match
 * Kel'Thuzad
 * Anub'Rekhan is one of my finest Spider Lords. Good luck, interloper.

Introduction
 * Anub'Rekhan
 * ''Welcome to my parlor.

Emote Response
 * Anub'Rekhan
 * ''It speaks!

Hero Power
 * Anub'Rekhan
 * ''Closer now, tasty morsels!

Locust Swarm
 * Anub'Rekhan
 * ''Just a little taste!

Death
 * Anub'Rekhan
 * ''Why... oh... why?


 * Kel'Thuzad
 * NOOO!!! I mean.... Irrelevant. You'll never defeat the Grand Widow.

Lore
''The Arachnid Quarter houses undead s, an ancient race of intelligent arachnoid beings. Normally highly reclusive and suspicious of outsiders, living nerubians fought valiantly against the undead, but were overwhelmed by their numbers. While living nerubians were immune to the undead plague, nothing could prevent the from bringing back the fallen to join the Scourge in undeath.

''One of the minions raised by the Lich King was the Crypt Lord. In life, he was one of the nerubians’ most powerful lords. Now, he guards the doors of the Arachnid Quarter.''

In World of Warcraft

 * ", one of the finest Spider Lords of Azjol'Nerub, was brought under control of the Scourge when he and his commander, Anub'arak, were finally defeated by the Lich King many years ago. It is said he was the most loyal of Anub'arak's commanders."

Trivia

 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Naxxramas Raid Deck" series, for the card Anub'Rekhan.
 * Senior UI Designer Derek Sakamoto shared the following unused flavor text for Anub'Rekhan:
 * "Anub'Rekhan is scary on the outside, thoughtful on the inside and also chitinous on the outside and then squishy when we're talking about his insides again."

Patch changes

 * Added.