Welcome, fellow achievement hunter.
Ever since the introduction of the rewards track, each expansion has always brought us a handful of achievements to complete in order to gain more rewards: while some of them are relatively easy to complete, some others may take some time or a proper set up. In case you're wondering what's the best way to gain all that sweet sweet XP locked behind Fractured in Alterac Valley's achievements, do not fret, as we have the answer you're looking for!
In this guide we'll focus our attention on the Alterac Valley Neutral achievements (here's the full list of all the Alterac gameplay achievements) and provide at least one way to complete each of them so that you'll be able to get closer to the end of your reward track.
Disclaimer: as always, all expansion achievements can be completed in Ranked Standard, Ranked Wild, Arena, Casual & Heroic Duels and Classic - Casual Standard, Casual Wild and Tavern Brawl will not count towards your hunt! Moreover, we'll always take Ranked Standard as the default game format for our strategies: if we happen to have some strategies or particular interactions belonging to other modes to highlight, we'll be sure to specify it.
In case you're still deep in your achievement hunt, worry not: we prepared a guide for each class (and neutrals!) for you to take inspiration from, so that you'll be able to complete them in no time for those sweet sweet XP points.
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Demon Hunter Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Druid Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Hunter Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Mage Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Paladin Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Priest Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Rogue Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Shaman Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Warlock Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Warrior Achievements
- How to Complete Alterac Valley's Neutral Achievements
- How to Complete Onyxia's Lair's Achievements
Table of Contents
Alterac Neutrals Achievements Overview
This is an all-encompassing category where gradual or even full progress across many achievements just happens by simply playing the game. If you get something completed accidentally, that's usually one of those. Chances are you'll be able to complete a remarkable portion of them without much trouble.
Because there are so many separate small pieces of flexible nature, it wouldn't make much sense to focus on every single achievement here and discuss it with its own deck. Instead, we'll aim to hit as many of them as possible in one grand take, and only separately cover a chosen few that warrant such approach. We may add a simple short note or two for the rest of them where it's applicable.
Edit: updated with the Onyxia's Lair Mini-Set "Job Whelp Done" and "Legacy of the Kabal" achievements.
Completing Various Neutral Alterac Achievements In One Go
Speed Rating: 6/5?
As usual, here's a way to complete multiple achievements in a single go. The trick is including as many grindy achievements as possible in a single deck, and then jam it on ladder in order to progress all of them, bit by bit.
The deal is simple: something goes in (say Gankster or Frantic Hippogryph), and then goes out as soon as the relevant achievement is marked as completed.
Personally, I followed the same method I used back in United in Stormwind: Seek Guidance Priest. Being able to Discover a card from your deck every time you complete a Questline step allows you to tutor the cards you want with more ease. You'll rarely get to play Xyrella, the Sanctified and cast Purified Shard, but progressing multiple achievements at the same time will make up for it.
- If you're not a fan of either of those or don't have the necessary cards, just settle for your comfort class! Warlock and Shaman are also fine natural choices.
How to Complete the "1600 Dust Bounty" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Destroy 10/20 Legendary minions with Grimtotem Bounty Hunter.
Speed Rating: 3/5.
Disclaimer: this achievement is currently bugged. Grimtotem Bounty Hunter doesn't recognize some Questline rewards as Legendary units, and therefore won't progress the achievement. To be clear, 1600 Dust Bounty is still doable, but it may take you a tad more time. The achievement is now completable.
They did Rend Blackhand dirty, huh? Other than the fact that this achievement is a bit bugged, there's nothing really relevant to say: include Grimtotem Bounty Hunter into every deck you achievement hunt/play with and you'll eventually get there - in the end, 20 kills aren't that many.
How to Complete the "Big Bird" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Destroy 30 enemies with Humongous Owl.
Speed Rating: 3/5.
In case you haven't already completed it in the first few days of the expansion with OwlTK Warlock, this achievement can be completed without much grind thanks to Amulet of Undying/Xyrella, the Devout shenanigans. Just include Humongous Owl into a Deathrattle Priest and play the deck until you're done.
- Note that the achievement states that you have to destroy 30 enemies and not enemy minions: killing your opponent with Humongous Owl's effect will count!
- Moreover, kills don't necessarily have to be obtained by the Deathrattle: trades work too!
How to Complete the "Gankster's Paradise" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Gank and destroy 15 minions with Gankster.
Speed Rating: 2/5.
Although they have to be executed in a certain way, 15 kills aren't that many, and Gankster's Paradise represents one of the 'less grindy' achievements: we're talking about a 2 mana unit that can be pretty much included in every deck until you're done with the job.
Therefore, we're not going to provide a specific decklist for this achievement, but we want to point out a neat synergy that will make things a lot funnier: if you cast Ramming Mount on Gankster, it will always survive the trade, meaning that if your opponent doesn't have any direct answers to it, Gankster will keep attacking every enemy minion played, speeding up the completion's pace.
How to Complete the "Harder, Better, Warmaster, Stronger" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Save 150 Mana on Frostwolf Warmasters.
Speed Rating: 3/5.
150 mana means that you'll have to play a 0 mana Frostwolf Warmaster 38 times. While this is a rather big number, you can include two copies of that unit in your deck, meaning that things are brighter than they might seem at first glance.
Fortunately for all of us, a Cute Rogue list recently started to gain traction in the meta, and that deck does run Frostwolf Warmaster - just in time for our guide!
- Although it may not be the smartest move from the gameplay point of view, you can Shadowstep your Frostwolf Warmasters for extra completion points.
How to Complete the "Mary Had a Little Ram" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Summon 100 of Ram Commander's Battle Rams.
Speed Rating: 4/5.
100 Battle Rams are many, but there's one trick to speed up the process while also staying relatively competitive. If you pay attention, Mary Had a Little Ram states that you have to summon the Rams for them to count towards the achievement: therefore, Oracle of Elune has neat synergy, since it doubles the number of Rams you summon, and with that the progress you get.
To be honest, you are not forced to play Token Beast Druid in order to complete Mary Had a Little Ram: you can always grind it out the old way!
How to Complete the "Reflecto Failure" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Play a 0-Health minion.
Speed Rating: 1/5.
While the achievement's requirement can send you off if you don't immediately get what you're supposed to do, the task is pretty simple: play Reflecto Engineer while having a 0-Attack minion in hand, and then play said unit. That's it: that's the whole achievement.
We have both a Standard and a Wild list for you. For the first one we picked Shaman, because Thrall has Totems and Windchill is a nutty cycle tool, that also helps you progressing through the Winter Vacation achievement.
The Wild list is a Warlock deck, since Plot Twist is so good at finding Reflecto Engineer.
How to Complete the "Teamkill" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Trigger a single Spammy Arcanist's effect 5/14 times.
Speed Rating: 1/5.
At first this achievement seemed nearly impossible to me: setting up Defile clears requires quite the math, but being able to create one from scratch that goes up to 10 triggers is nearly impossible, unless you have a unit that keeps spawning stuff. And Hearthstone has one, of two we should say: Grim Patron and Gruntled Patron. Both of them require the same set up and both of them will get the job done: we personally advise you to use the latter as it costs less and allows you to complete the achievement in Standard, but if the call of the good old days is just too strong to not answer, then feel free to do as you please.
Here are the steps you should follow in order to complete the Teamkill achievement:
- Play a single copy of Gruntled Patron.
- Play a 1 mana unit that deals 1 damage and trigger Gruntled Patron's Frenzy: Elven Archer is Core and does the trick.
- Gruntled Patron will summon another Patron.
- At this point, your side of the board will be as it follows: a 3/2 Patron, a 3/3 Patron and a 1/1 Archer - the Defile is set up!
- Play Spammy Arcanist and enjoy the animation.
How to Complete the "The Trees Speaks for Themselves" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Play a 12/12 or bigger Ivus, the Forest Lord.
Speed Rating: 1/5.
Super easy achievement: you just have to play Ivus, the Forest Lord from your hand when you have 10 full Mana Crystals, and the card will do the rest. That's it.
If you happen to not own it, you can test your luck with First Day of School, but we highly discourage you from doing so, as Alterac Standard will have... *checks notes*... 73 different 1-Cost units, and you don't want to play against those odds.
- Ivus needs 9 mana to gain +12/+12 in stats, but you'll also have to consider its cost: therefore, you'll need 10 mana in total. Watch out!
How to Complete the "Yummy in My Tummy" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Eat an 8/8 or larger minions with Abominable Lieutenant.
Speed Rating: 2/5.
We bet you can feel Avalon's *humongous* brain when they came up with this 300 IQ strategy. Basically, here's what you should do:
- Play a Spell Paladin deck, with lots of cycle and healing.
- The only minion you'll run will be Abominable Lieutenant, so that Vitality Surge will always draw it and heal you for 8.
- Equip Cavalry Horn and swing with it one time.
- Clear the opponent's board until you start your turn with just one enemy minion in play.
- Break Cavalry Horn and summon Lieutenant from your hand.
- If the enemy minion isn't at least 8/8 in stats, cast Blessing of Authority on it and pass the turn.
- Your Lieutenant will absorb the enemy minion and will give you the XP points you deserve.
How to Complete the "Job Whelp Done" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Attack with Onyxian Whelps 100/200 times.
Speed Rating: 2/5
While this achievement can be completed with any class, given that there are Neutral minions that generate Onyxian Whelps, but some heroes are better than others, and will help you getting your job done in less time. But before that, here are all the cards that summon Onyxian Whelps:
With this said, we think Priest is the superior class for you to complete the achievement: if you build your deck so that it contains only Dragon minions, you'll always make sure to trigger Horn of Wrathion's entire effect, summoning two Onyxian Whelps; moreover, the class has access to many other useful tools:
- Thrive in the Shadows helps you fishing your Horns or other useful spells (maybe to activate Lightmaw Netherdrake).
- Raise Dead gives you additional Whelps or Whelp generators.
- Insight is a Horn of Wrathion that doesn't summon Whelps, but discounts you units.
- Draconic Studies Discovers Whelp generators or, in case you miss them, discounts the ones you included in your deck.
- Remember that Job Whelp Done asks you not to just summon, but to attack with your Onyxian Whelps too.
- There are currently 9 10-mana minions in Standard, so you have decent chances to Discover Raid Boss Onyxia with Resizing Pouch.
How to Complete the "Legacy of the Kabal" Neutral Achievement
Requirement: Play 8/16 unique Treasures from Kazakusan.
Speed Rating: 3/5
Every time you play Kazakusan, it will give you 5 Treasures from a pool of 32 (31 plus Quel'Delar), meaning that completing Legacy of the Kabal will only take some time and, for those who want to make sure to get that XP as fast as possible, some paperwork too.
In the end, it's just a matter of time before you'll complete this achievement, so have fun and have a taste of this unprecedented Standard-Duels crossover.
Other Resources
Our clever community members set up a forum thread to share your achievement progression journey, and we have added an #achievements channel on our Discord server if you want to talk with others in real-time. If you need an assist, you can also respond to this guide and we'll do our best to help you out; the comments are also a great way to share your own decks that you've used to complete the achievements above.
Good luck tackling any of these achievements for your experience boost or just for the sake of satisfying completion!
Comments
Boo on me! I didn't consider the Patron family guys for dat Spammy Arcanist achievement
I think it will work also for the snowball achievement, so i can focus on fill my opponent board with minions lol
I completed both the Ivus and the Abominable Lieutenant one with ramp druid, which plays both minions anyway. Also gives you Mo Mana Mo Problems!
I've seen some discussion in the comment section (and in other parts of the site, really), so I figured out I may as well express my humble opinion.
I feel like people already forgot how may bad achievements there were in previous expansions. It is true: we are definitely experiencing a swift in Team 5's philosophy, moving away from combo achievements and directing towards grindy ones, but... is it really a bad thing?
Let's take United in Stormwind for example: while there were some really grindy achievements in there, here's a list of the combo ones:
On the other hand, the only real "combo" achievements we've got in Alterac are:
Grindy achievements may take more time to complete and may ask you to play otherwise unplayable cards, but at least you can actively work towards your goal, and bit by bit you'll get there. Sure, they won't be finished in a couple games, but we can say that your plays (and not your luck) do matter.
Long story short, I'll take long achievements all day instead of "hey, hope you're feeling lucky today" ones, and Alterac did go in that direction, which I think is an improvement, especially from the F2P point of view, given that most grindy achievements are tied behind Commons/Rares.
You are definitely right that grindy achievements are better than the older hope to get lucky ones, especially if they are tied to owning legendaries (or epics). Thus, improvements have been made already, I agree. However, some of the newer grindy achievements just take too long to setup and we still need to do these in ranked games with uncompetitive cards where your opponent is most of the times just there to crush you.
I know these achievements are optional and I am not advocating they should simply turn them into free XP handouts, but there is still room for further improvements I feel.
What also does not help is that some of them are bugged and still not fixed which reduces our time frame to collect the attached XP which goes away just before the next expansion gets launched. I know there is still plenty of time to accomplish them though depending on if the fixes get released sooner than later.
There's definitely room for improvement: I feel like in some cases they just didn't know what tasks to come up with (especially, but not limited to the Neutral section) and just settled on the "do something with this card over and over again" - Kobold Taskmaster's achievement is a clear example. I feel like Stormpike Quartermaster could've received an achievement, but it is what it is.
However, things have changed (for the better) since achievements were introduced with Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, and I am sure the positive trend will continue.
As for the bugged achievements, I think they just happened to take place in a rather unfortunate window of time, since Team 5 went home for the winter holidays roughly two weeks after Alterac went live - I dare to say that if it weren't for the vacation, those bugs would've already been fixed.
Let us hope for the improving trend to continue and revisit this discussion when new achievements get introduced. Then we can review them in the same way. For now, we can only wait, remain critical and enjoy the game as it is currently.
Also another nice synergy with the Battle Rams, you can summon 2 copies with Playmaker
For Mary Had a Litte Ram, Playmaker and Oracle of Elune are basically equivalents in terms of achievement progression.
I got Gankster one with a hunter secret deck, that did decently, maybe 45% win rate.
The Hippo one is decent just slowly get it over maybe 50 games, just throw two in achievement decks. There are worse ones, like the Warrior one where you need to do 400 damage with a end of turn spell. The achievement idea is fine just the damage takes too long.
For the warrior achievement, finished it in 4 games with this list.
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Iceblood Garrison
# 2x (2) Man the Cannons
# 1x (2) Minefield
# 2x (2) Novice Engineer
# 2x (2) To the Front!
# 2x (2) Warpath
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Coldlight Oracle
# 2x (3) Heavy Plate
# 2x (3) Mo'arg Artificer
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (4) Guild Trader
# 2x (4) Outrider's Axe
# 2x (6) Mad Summoner
The end of turn effect can be increased with spell damage and mad summoner allows for the maximum amount of damage done. In fact you can easily do it in 2 games assuming your opponent doesn't pressure your face.
Its certainly nowhere near as dumb as hippogryph.
Wasn't this guide a bit too fast? I mean, miniset is right there, thus, the extra achievements is coming soon. Twice the hard work I'd say.
Appreciated the guide nonetheless. Any info about the Paladin achievements bugs? I mean it's ridiculous enough to have wait a month and not getting any fix.
If anyone intends to get those extra xp, they'd better start now. I've tried completing nearly all the neutral achievements in one deck, and its awkward as hell trying to both survive and get these done. Sometimes I swear my opponent thinks Im either crazy or too much a newbie in this game. In that respect, I appreciate that someone's posting a list here to help out.
And paladin achievement bug? Let's hope its fixed before the midset, because there's no guarantee that paladin remains on top. Because if Rustrot Viper is meta again, then this achievement is close to impossible to finish without tearing your head off.
I am glad for the guides. These achievements are harder to get than other expansions so nice to have help getting them done. Past expansions were like just throw certain cards in decks but this one requires specific decks for most achievements
As you suggested earlier this week dapperdog, perhaps we should indeed finally have a discussion about why these particular cards were chosen to create a specific and sometimes difficult grindy achievement around which will mostly lead to a horrible user experience. Are these achievements supposed to be fun, challenging or something completely different? Let us not forget to include their weird decision of only attaching XP for the most recent expansion achievements in this discussion which time and time again gets removed a week too early before the next expansion gets launched.
For Frostwolf Warmaster, play in wild as rogue with Vanish and potion of Illusions. You can rapidly fork out warmasters so fast its not even funny. Same for Stormpike Marshal
Frantic Hippogryph and Gankster achievement are among the worst ones Ive seen so far. Its not easy to find someone who'd willingly let their minions trade right into a gankster, let alone a value trade. Most of the time they'd either just kill it with AoE or they play a 5 health minion and make me tear part of my scalp out.
Hippogryph is particularly stupid, because it requires you to practically play this card 40 times, since triggering the windfury is hard enough, and no player on earth will let this stick for more than a turn.