We've got a brand new event in Hearthstone's Mercenaries game mode and it's here only for a limited-time! This time, we'll venture into many dangerous Bounty zones with the aid of N'Zoth, (in)famous Old God that already made its appearance in Hearthstone in Whispers of the Old Gods with N'Zoth, the Corruptor.
Our journey won't be in search of just fame and success, but you'll be able to complete a set of 10 event Tasks, which will reward you coins for N'Zoth and many other goodies.
Here are all the tasks that are available during the N'Zoth Mercenaries event. Click any of the links below to visit our guide for the task.
- Raiding the Shore
- Ice Sculpting
- Requirement: Complete Icehowl Bounty without any Blocks of Ice on the board in Winterspring.
- Reward: N'Zoth Mercenary.
- One with the Void
- Bunker Crashers
- Requirement: Complete Galvangar Bounty using 6 of Human, Dwarf and Elf characters in Alterac Valley.
- Reward: 50 N'Zoth coins, 25 Balinda Stonehearth Coins.
- Murlocs in the Valley
- Bones and Golems
- Damage Supreme
- Requirement: Deal 100 damage with N'zoth's Corrupted Viscera in a single battle.
- Reward: N'Zoth Golden Portrait
- Emperor Dethroned
- Requirement: Complete Emperor Thaurissan Bounty without setting off powdered kegs.
- Reward: 75 N'Zoth coins, 50 Balinda Stonehearth coins.
- Murlocs on Ice
- Requirement: Complete Heroic Popsicooler Bounty with at least 3 Murlocs in Alterac Valley.
- Reward: 75 N'Zoth coins, 50 Murky coins, 50 random coins.
- Visions of Conquest
- Requirement: Land a killing blow with N'zoth's Spawn of N'zoth against Gigafin or Gigafin's Maw in Corrupted Murlocs Bounty in Darkshore.
- Reward: Diamond N'Zoth portrait.
As you can see, these tasks are quite the mixed bag: while some are fairly simple to complete, others require more than a bit of thinking (and luck: that one's always welcome) and planning ahead.
Moreover, certain tasks clearly state that you need Comps consisting of Mercenaries belonging to specific races in order for your progresses to count: while the Leeroy Jenkins event was about Orcs, Humans and Dragons, this time you'll need the help of Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and... Murlocs!
Not all challenges might be as difficult as they seem at a glance: there are usually tips and tricks to be found to make everyone's lives easier. In this series of guides we'll take a look at how to complete each event Task, so that you'll be able to get your hands on all the rewards available. As of now, we'll focus our attention on the current task.
In case you missed them, if you click the banner below you'll have access to each of our task guides for this event.
Table of Contents
How to Complete the "Murlocs on Ice" Task from the N'Zoth Event
- Requirement: Complete Heroic Popsicooler Bounty with at least 3 Murlocs in Alterac Valley.
- Rewards: 75 N'Zoth coins, 50 Murky coins, 50 random coins.
- Difficulty: 5/5
Scaring you away is definitely against our personal interests, but Murlocs on Ice is by far the most difficult task of the entire N'Zoth event, and for multiple reasons:
- You're forced to work with a team consisting of basically 3 Mercenaries.
- Winterspring is a very difficult zone.
- The Popsicooler Heroic Bounty is among the hardest in the entire game mode.
It's the first time we've given a difficulty of 5/5 to an event task, but we think that Murlocs on Ice totally deserves it.
Now that we vented a bit, let us explain what the Popsicooler bounty is all about and how we can complete it.
The final fight will have you matched against 4 units, each of which will provide a good amount of headaches. From left to right we have:
- Sugar Elemental - AoE damage source.
- Popsicooler - Has strong moves based on Treat Trolley's Health total/presence on the board.
- Confection Cyclone - Will provide Frost Spell Damage to buff Sugar Elemental and Popsicooler's movesets.
- Treat Trolley - Will swap sides of the board at the end of each turn. Converts Frost Damage into Health.
As you can see, lots of stats to take down, but that's not all: the enemy units have strong movesets, which also synergize really well.
Sugar Elemental is the "AoE" unit: it will deal damage to multiple targets: the power of the moves you see below will be amplified by Confection Cyclone's [Hearthstone Card (Ice Floes 5) Not Found]. Strong, but not unbeatable, and definitely not our top priority.
[Hearthstone Card (Flurry 5) Not Found] 
Sugar Elemental's moveset.
Popsi is the actual final boss: not only it boasts 310 starting Health, but things are going to become worse and worse with each turn. In fact, Popsi will always start the fight by casting I Scream, a speed 4 ability that will grant it up to an additional 175 Health. Yes, speed 4; yes, it grants new Health (not a healing effect); yes, it will happen multiple times throughout the fight. On the following turn, Popsi will cast You Scream, a speed 5 ability which will deal damage based on Treat Trolley's remaining Health.
Moreover, We All Scream represents a really dangerous AoE ability, which not only will cripple your side of the board, but will also give Treat Trolley a bunch of additional Health.
Reading this, you may think that taking down Treat Trolley as soon as the fight starts might be a good strategy, right? Wrong: if you do that, Popsi will cast Dairy Consequence each turn, and you will lose.
Popsicooler's moveset.
Next up, Confection Cyclone. As we said, this is the Spell Damage booster unit: your initial goal is killing it as soon as possible.
[Hearthstone Card (Ice Floes 5) Not Found]
Confection Cyclone's moveset.
Finally, we have the Trolley. Since killing it right off the bat is a very bad idea (Popsi will spam Dairy Consequence), we'll have to live with it for most of the fight. Here are some notable aspects of this unit:
- It will swap sides at the end of each turn - you can make it lose Health by ramming it into an enemy unit.
- +5 Fire Weakness - not a game changer, but we'll take it.
- Converts Frost damage into Health - obnoxious because of We All Scream and Popsi's overall synergies.
Stupid cart.
If you're still reading, congratulations: you're truly a brave player. We think the most efficient approach to this final fight is what follows:
- On turn 1, focus your damage on Treat Trolley without killing it.
- The lower the Health you'll leave it at, the less powerful I Scream and You Scream will be, at least for some time.
- When Treat Trolley is on your side of the board, consider ramming it into the highest Attack enemy, just to keep Trolley's Health total in check.
- From turn 2, focus all your damage output on Confection Cyclone.
- You don't want your enemies' already strong abilities to become even stronger with [Hearthstone Card (Ice Floes 5) Not Found]'s Frost Spell Damage bonus.
- Moreover, the more Frost damage Treat Trolley receives, the more Health it will gain and the more Popsi will be dangerous.
- If you managed to get this far, finish off Sugar Elemental and Popsi while keeping Treat Trolley's Health low.
- You may want to start with Sugar Elemental and leave Popsi for last, but this depends on how you're positioned once you get there.
Out of Cards Recommendation - Fire Comp
We'll make it simple for you: we tried multiple strategies in order to complete Murlocs on Ice, but only one worked out - the Fire Comp. You need consistent damage output and AoE abilities, which Ragnaros & Co. are particularly proficient at, making your life as easy as possible.
Here's a quick clip showing you how it's done. The fight is not going to be easy, but Fire synergy makes it doable by a fair margin.
- Final fight comp is Balinda Stonehearth-Ragnaros-Baron Geddon.
- Start blasting damage through the entire enemy side of the board, focusing targeted abilities on Confection Cyclone.
- You may want to cast Frost Dart 1 on Popsi for some nice Fire Weakness to exploit throughout the course of the fight.
- Balinda Stonehearth's Lesser Water Elemental 1 is excellent in this fight, as it allows you to stall Popsi for one or two turns.
- As your Fire comp Mercenaries succumb to the enemy abilities, bring in the Murlocs.
- Murky's Bubbly Bobble 1 is particularly good against We All Scream: make sure to have a Nature combo activator.
Other Resources
Our clever community members set up a forum thread to share your Mercenaries progression journey, and we have added a #mercenaries 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 comps that you've used to complete the task above.
Good luck taking on any of these Bounties for those sweet sweet coins or just for the sake of satisfying completion!
Comments
My first try was with the fire comp suggested here, but I had too much health left on the Trolley by the time the murlocs hit the board.
Second try was with all 5 murlocs + Malfurion. I got the Amalgimation treasure for Mutanus, which let me eat the Trolley and gain a ton of health plus some attack from poor Murky who was at the other side of Mutanus. Then I killed off Popsicooler as fast as I could (I had already weakened it turn 1 by having Murky give it taunt and attacking into it) and had just enough health left on Mutanus to finish off the remainder of the enemies.
It is possible to do this with a Murloc opener and few losses.
I stumbled upon this solution when first determining that if you get the Start of Game Murloc stat bonus treasures and stack them, you can possibly kill the cart on round 1. This was a poor plan. First of all, Murky has absolute shit treasure design and his selections are full of awfulness, while several other Murlocs also have bad treasures, meaning you'll have to retire several runs a quarter-in due to simple bad rolls. Second, summons don't get the bonus, which makes hitting the requisite attack values extremely difficult.
But this leads us to the actual strategy here: fill the board. Use the Murky item that lets him Battlecry Murloc summons and give him the treasure that reduces cooldowns -- or give it to Old Murk Eye. Either way, summon something on Round 1. None of your attacks matter -- just don't lose any units.
The cart will attempt to switch sides -- then immediately shatter because your board is full.
I had no idea that switching units suicided rather than smash one of your minions. For one thing, that makes Hot Potato actually very rarely useful, which is shocking. But here, it means you instantly jump to phase two of the fight.
I used Murky, Old Murk-Eye, and Morgl the Oracle. Murk-Eye needs to have the Divine Shield while attacking item. The rest of my comp was Nature: Malfurion Stormrage, Guff Runetotem, and Cookie, the Cook (4 Murlocs were used because, again, I was originally fishing for that stat-bonus treasure and needed to maximize the number of instances.)
On turn two, since the cart is smashed, Cooler will go into murder mode. Use Murky to divine shield-up your minions (Nature combo with Morgl) and Morgl to keep Murk-Eye healthy as he is your only real damage. Morgl can, and likely will, fall to Popsicooler. Malfurion comes out to entangle Popsicooler, giving you more time to beat it down. Confection Cyclone is your next target.
(If you're using a different method to lock down Popsicooler for longer than just one round, destroy Confection first -- it stacks Frost damage.)
I had to get some tasks done first with Murky and Nefarian to give them better abilities. The other Murlocs aren't good enough for this fight and I also wasn't very successful with the Fire squad so I ended up with Nefarian, Sinestra, Yu'lon, Cookie, the Cook, Murky, and Old Murk-Eye. Started the fight with the dragons. They all went down eventually, but the murlocs are way sturdier than I initially thought. It was a close call still, but if you'd ask me these challenges and events are what make this mode fun.
I now have 24 mercenary packs waiting to be opened on June 1st when a bunch of new mercenaries will be released. I bet some of them are going to be remarkably fun and unique.
Great guide! I'll just add my suggestions here for anyone that wants more options. I think this is the hardest special event task yet. No matter how strong your squad is and how smart you play, you're not beating this one without some major luck: that means picking up the best treasures along the route, and probably winning some speed ties in the final battle. There are several strategies that aim to drop Popsicooler by turn 2, and if you can pull that off, you'll almost certainly win. It's a high-risk/high-reward play, as focusing on Popsicooler without killing it will probably cost you the match. Some folks use an Orc comp and aim to pick up Windfury for Samuro, which is very likely to succeed. The downside there is splitting with Murlocs, which are required. I decided to go more heavy on Murlocs for better synergy, and bring a couple dragons for navigating the map. Here's my winning squad:
Murky (equip: plus attack when hitting taunt), Old Murk-Eye (equip: attack boost and divine shield), Mutanus (equip: extra damage reduction), Cookie (equip: appetizers), Brightwing (equip: extra healing) and Alexstrasza (equip: Gambit healing).
The goal is simple: Murky taunts up Popsicooler on turn 1, then everyone swings in for maximum damage. Turn 2, Murky bubbles in order to protect Murk-Eye from Popsicooler massive damage. Then you just have to duke it out to the bitter end.
Good luck everyone!