Mullahoo’s Hearthstone Mercenaries leveling guide for Fighters

This guide hopes to serve you as a hub of information: something you can return to. A map for each Fighter--including how to spend their earliest Coins and complete their most important tasks. Welcome to my Hearthstone Mercenaries Leveling Guide for Fighters! We'll be focusing heavily on Mercenaries PvP as well as how best to navigate the early game.

The Caster Guide will be out next week, and expect them to be updated as new Mercenaries are released, like these!

Best Equipment: Burning Blade (Task 2) (but Sash of Illusion (Task 7) is great)

Coin Farms: Apothecary Helbrim (1.4), Neeru Fireblade (1.9), Emperor Thaurissan (4.3)

Blademaster Samuro is the "B" in "BTX"-- alongside Thrall and Xyrella, he created The First Aggro Deck. When primed by Xyrella's early damage, Samuro represents an often-lethal attack on a Caster at 4 Speed on Turn 1! Since then he's been combined with Shadow, Nature, Orcs-- just about anything that wants some Blue Hate.

The Mercenaries leveling guide update for Samuro is that he definitely loves Sash of Illusion, his Task 7 Equipment, in a lot of comps. Most of the Aggro comps will still lean towards Burning Blade, but if you ever want to do anything funky, expect Sash to be a part of that equation. Shadow Samuro and Nature Samuro are some of the best comps in the game right now.

Task Priority: High-- Burning Blade is a key part of making Samuro into the threat that he can be. Since it's his Task 2 Equipment, I honestly suggest slamming him into any PvE comp and get Burning Blade quickly. You can even spend Coins on the Equipment instead of his actual Double Strike ability, since they scale similarly. Sash of Illusion is the Task 7 Equipment that, like Sylvanas and Death Volley, is often the choice for slower Control comps. (MAM features both Mercs and both Task 7s!)

(Fun F2P Fact! The Equipment vs. Ability choice is actually a common occurrence in a lot of Mercs. The upgrade cost of an Equipment to Rank 2 will be better Coin Value than upgrading the Ability to Rank 3. For example: Samuro's Burning Blade 2 goes from giving +1 Attack to +2 Attack for 100 Coins, while upgrading Double Strike from Rank 2 to 3 adds the same +1 Attack for 125 Coins. Just remember to take a peek at the math-- and Speed changes, too! No Hearthstone Mercenaries Leveling Guide would be complete without this!)

Best Equipment: Black Soulstone (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Emperor Thaurissan (4.3), General Drakkisath (4.8)

The first Mercenaries tournament helped showcase just how sick Diablo is-- now a classic combo is his Fire Stomp after Cairne's Endurance Aura, going off at 3 Speed and super-AoE-ing down entire boards.

The world wondered if he would be good in PvE because Apocalypse guaranteed Critical Damage (he wasn't, really). Instead, Diablo took a while to get going-- around a whole whopping One Week-- before he was absolutely everywhere in PvP. Speed Control had become the name of the game and Diablo was the fiery prince of it. Alongside Varden and Cairne the Lord of Terror is a threat on and off the bench.

Task Priority: Oof! Black Soulstone is the best option on Diablo, especially when you start to consider that whomsteverest's Diablo doesn't have Soulstone will lose the mirror. But his entire relevance revolves around fast Fire Stomp, and even just one of those is more than enough. Grinding seven Tasks just for Diablo to get a little tankier feels bad. This Mercenaries leveling guide suggests doing Diablo Tasks later in your grind so you can get other impactful Equipment first.

Best Equipment: Black Flag (Task 2)

Coin Farms: Rend Blackhand (4.9)

Edwin was the hallmark Merc from the mini-set but was tragically and instantly eclipsed by Cookie. However, Edwin still does some powerful stuff. He actually cranks super hard with a set-up Assassin's Blade, comboing off with all kinds of Slows to double-strike Casters apart.

The rest of his kit is medium, but Black Flag + one or two hits is all you really expect. Assisted Strike is quite strong when you're actually playing with Pirates, jumping up in Attack and getting a random value punch, but Edwin rarely lives to see multiple turns. Then again-- that just means he's spooky! Expect Edwin to become a more prominent force in Mercenaries PvP next year.

Task Priority: Medium-- Thankfully this Legendary has a good Equipment at Task 2, Black Flag. Pirates are still being fleshed out but when in doubt, Speed Up Is Good. This allows Eudora in particular to act extremely quickly-- if he can get one more good Pirate (sorry Sneed) Edwin might finally start popping off.

Best Equipment: Primed Armaments (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Highlord Omokk (4.7)

Eudora took a bit to enter the meta but she's slowly being understood as a very powerful Merc. Her Cannons do a lot of damage and do the funky Chess Tavern Brawl mechanic of being able to "split" their attacks when they're "in between" two Mercs.

She's insanely skill intensive, being able to move around Cannons to get the maximum damage on the right targets. The community is far away from figuring out how to play her correctly, let alone play against the Cannon movement. If you learn Eudora really well, expect to get rewarded down the line!

Task Priority: Extremely High-- Primed Armaments, her Task 7 that Summons a Cannon as a Battlecry, is the reason to play Eudora. Her Cannons dictate all of her play patterns, and you really need to be able to drop one as soon as she comes down. Combine this with Covering Fire to pick yourself up and bring another Cannon later and you've got yourself the Eudora Two-Step.

Best Equipment: Razor Fist (Level 30)

Coin Farms: Baron Geddon (4.5)

Illidan is here, baby! A patch buffed his kit to include Blade Dance down to 1 Cooldown instead of 2-- now Illidan can be a fearsome opener. Winged Assault into Blade Dance is a very powerful and relatively guaranteed combo now, though the latter is still slow. Razor Fist is now too important of a boost and part of your only Turn 1 action, so the Level 30 Equipment becomes the new hotness as well.

Task Priority: Zero! Razor Fist, his Level 30 Equipment, is an attractive option now that he wants to open and prepare to Dance. Demon Shroud did get a juicy buff to prevent 10 less damage when attacking instead of 5, but Illidan's damage is too important. His opening play is now a consistent "Attack For 23" into "AoE for 23".

Best Equipment: Flaming Claws (Task 2)

Coin Farms: Lord Banehollow (2.6)

King Krush is sweet. Apex Predator chomps through the competition but really appreciates Flaming Claws maxed out sooner than later to make it easy. This dino mimics Ragnaros in his ability to one-shot PvE content on his own after the rest of your lineup chips people down into the Exact Lethal range. Krush is a good non-Legendary unit to speedrun a Mercenaries leveling guide or two.

In high elo there's a good amount of appreciation for the Full Beast Comp, too: Krush, King Mukla, and Rexxar all fully suited-up on Turn 1 throws out a ton of stats, as Rexxar can give up to +4/+4 to every Beast. If you open a lot of Beastly Legendaries (especially their Baby portraits) definitely throw them together and throw down.

Task Priority: High-- Krush Gamers don't mind if Apex Predator is slow, and Terrify is honestly still used less frequently than Apex Predator because of the targeted nature of the latter. Flaming Claws is the King's Task 2 Equipment and literally the best place to be spending your Coins. Bringing Krush up to 19 base Attack lets you line up your sweeper math so much easier.

Best Equipment: Toxic Venom (Level 30)

Coin Farms: Plaguemaw the Rotting (1.8), The Anointed Blade (2.2), Ahune the Frostlord (3.6), Vaelestrasz (4.11)

Anacondra is in a weird place, despite that place being very obvious: Nature Comp. The problem is: she only feels okay. On paper she represents a gigantic crit onto Casters, but the fact that the damage is split between two triggers is often annoying. If you kill with it on the first tick of Serpent's Bite, then you miss out on the second half of the damage-- if you have to wait until the end of the turn, the Caster will get to act!

Stacking Bru'kan Nature Damage has great synergy with Anacondra since the second half of the Bite will check the +3 from Lightning Bolt. She can end up dealing 46+ damage without much investment! If you can get equity out of her other Abilities then she gets better and better, whether alongside Beasts or her own Viper-- but too often she's reduced to just clicking one medium spell over and over.

Task Priority: Zero! Toxic Venom is our fair Lady's Level 30 Equipment and is the only one that affects her good ability. If you do want to try going for some spicy Beast plays, her other options are fine-- but ultimately you're going to be using Anacondra in Nature-heavy comps that lack Fighters to kill Casters. If you want to go really deep, try out Morgl + Malfurion + Anacondra and see how huge your Nightmare Vipers can get.

Best Equipment: Iridescent Necklace (Level 30)

Coin Farms: Xaravan (2.4)

Mutanus rounds out the cast of Mercs that can "Taunt on 1" and stop Samuro from lighting up your team. More interestingly, however, is that it is part of what enables the Murloc Comp: along with Morgl the Oracle and Old Murk-Eye, Mutanus is your defensive option while still punching. The 21.8 Patch buffed Iridescent Necklace to now stop Mutanus from ever taking Critical Damage, which is really good-- maybe even good enough to just play Mutanus by himself.

Task Priority: Medium-- After the patch, Iridescent Necklace is actually a really good Tank item, with some of the best damage mitigation in the game. Either are good, but we still need one more good Murloc to complete our opener. Earthen Armor is a quick Task 2 Equipment and the best way to give Mutanus a lot of stats. Right away you'll start dealing "double" damage with them, as Old Murk-Eye's Finvasion ability allows you to "attack" twice. Both options are decent!

Best Equipment: Bubble Wand (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Mad Bomber (1.7), Coren Direbrew (4.1)

See: Mutanus up above, but Old Murk-Eye is probably the best part about Murloc Comp. Finvasion is a crazy amount of DPS, even though it hurts your team-- sending all three Murlocs at one Caster can end up dealing over 70 damage on Turn 1! After everything crashes in, Murk-Eye continues to pump out Summons that synergize well and continue to threaten later Finvasions. Don't sleep on the fish.

Task Priority: High-- Task 7 is the place to be for Old Murk-Eye so he can start saving his own life and dealing more damage with Bubble Wand. The best reason to be playing Murlocs is for Finvasion, and the Wand essentially acts like "+5/+5": hit for 5 more, Divine Shield tank an ability or Retaliation Damage.

The next best option, and what might even become much, much better as more Murlocs get released, is Navigator's Amulet. Adding a true +5/+5 (and often more than just once) is a lot-- it just requires more setup and support. Regardless, Murloc Gaming is definitely under-respected.

Best Equipment: Demon's Mark (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Mad Bomber (1.7), Majordomo Executus (4.6)

Rathorian got a cute little buff in Patch 21.8 to pump up his Hulking Overfiend to execute a little better, but this Demon is actually showing up in comps for his Demon's Mark Equipment. If there was ever a way for Demons to have a decent opener, it looks like its Mannoroth + Rathorian + Diablo and start stacking stats.

Weirdly unfortunately, Jaraxxus, King of the Demons, got buffed and still might have to be on the bench, replaced by Rathorian. I hope a future Mercenaries leveling guide includes conversations about some crazy attacking Caster Demon that can round this comp out.

Task Priority: High, but unlucky-- In the Demon lineup, Demon's Mark is definitely worth it. But Rathorian has yet to be proven "Good Enough," so be wary of spending too much grinding his Mysterious Strangers. Truly do this as late into the game as you can unless you're positive you want an Attack-centric Demon strategy.

Best Equipment: Mama Bear's Claws (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Snowclaw (3.1)

Rexxar is what makes the true Beast Comp tick. Combined with King Mukla, his Big Brother and a certain scary dinosaur, Rexxar summons up a tanky lineup right off the bat. Designed to gobble up Casters and supported with good Taunt options versus Fighters and Protectors, the Jungle Kings are definitely part of a real strategy in Mercenaries PvP.

People have tried supplementing Rexxar with a Caster-heavy Bench in order to make up for your lack of ability to kill Protectors. Shadow and Nature have looked like decent complements. Rexxar can even be used as a way to trigger Samuro if you take his Swiftfeather Bow Equipment, too!

Task Priority: Very High-- Rexxar is at his best with Mama Bear's Claws, his Task 7 Equipment, but that also requires a lot of grinding, Coins, and Coins for your allied Beasts. On the way, you can definitely get away with using Huntsman's Rifle to stack Explosive Shot damage, but it isn't worth spending Coins on-- unless you want to crank up the heat in some very funky Fire Comps!

Best Equipment: Helm of Inspiration (Task 7) or Ancestral Armor (Level 30) for Mr. Smite Combo

Coin Farms: Ferocious Quilboar (1.1), Air Elemental (1.2), Neeru Fireblade (1.9)

The Orc Comp really wants to be jam-packed with every Orc you can get, and Rokara is a Fine addition. Her best utility comes from two things: Offensive Rally can effectively "heal" your allies by pumping their Health while also stacking their Attack, and Orc Onslaught is a crazy anti-Caster laser. The latter is the reason you might not even need five other Orcs to supplement her, though!

Helm of Inspiration is listed as Rokara's best Equipment, but honestly, none of her choices help her best spell: Orc Onslaught! It can be a "Deal ~80" through Taunts to a Caster in one press of a button. When you start mixing in Samuro's Sash of Illusion to make a second Mirror Image copy, things get even easier.

The latest and greatest for Rokara is her role in one of the first "Combo Decks" alongside Mr. Smite and Cornelius. Her only goal is to Survive and cast Offensive Rally for Smite on Turn 2. People are now even beginning to favor Ancestral Armor for extra health just to get there!

Task Priority: Low-- If Rokara had an option to make Orc Onslaught even better, she might take it. Helm of Inspiration adds the most team-friendly stats, but honestly, every Equipment for her is fine. You'll often use every one of her Abilities, especially if she starts in your opener. Flat Health from Ancestral Armor looks good to be able to help her survive until Orc Onslaught or to cast Offensive Rally.

Best Equipment: Saronite Stompers (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Ahune the Frostlord (3.6)

Okay, I might have lied in the Protector Guide about the Orcs not needing a Task-heavy Grind, because technically Saurfang is now another Orc that prefers Task 7. Mobilizing Strike, the ability affected by his Task 7 Equipment, is a safe way to end up piling on a ton of stats, which is quite clearly the Orc Mantra. But this means Saurfang finds himself relegated to being "An-Orc-in-Orc-Comp" duty-- until you use him to trigger some Mr. Smites or Tavish Traps!

Task Priority: Low-- Saronite Stompers is good but another gigantic Task 7 Equipment that only really rewards you for going super deep into one tribe. It's likely his best competitive option, but flat stats from Serrated Shield can never go wrong, either.

Best Equipment: Paring Knife (Task 2)

Coin Farms: Neeru Fireblade (1.9), Yeti Hunter Ranel (2.2)

Are you seeing a pattern here? Scabbs is another Fighter with limited experiences in the wild-- people just can't seem to make sense of him! In theory, his play patterns should be powerful: a 2 Speed Shadow Blade to Stealth and dodge Abilities into a slow-but-protected Wicked Stab to gank Casters. Rinse and repeat, Stealth and Stab-- and AoE doesn't even break his Stealth!

Part of his problem is that he needs his skills to be maxed out for him to be good. You need a super-fast Stealth in Shadow Blade, at least Rank 4, and you need Wicked Stab doing as much as it can. But if you're a Rogue fan and looking forward to Valeera or just want a unique Green Closer with some interesting mind-games, Scabbs could be up your alley!

Task Priority: Medium-- All of Scabbs' Equipment basically does the same thing: more damage! Paring Knife pumps up your highest DPS ability, Wicked Stab, and what would seem to be his biggest payoff. At only a Task 2 this is really achievable to scoop early, but you're going to want to do all of your Scabbs Tasks anyway in order to farm his Coins.

Best Equipment: Death Volley (Task 7)

Coin Farms: High Justice Grimstone (4.2)

The final pre-order bundle Merc, Sylvanas was surrounded by a lot of talk from the beginning. Her first impressions looked like she could be a crazy finisher, with Reclaimed Souls generating loads of attack and blowing up benches. This often included Death Volley as her Equipment to threaten a tie if she wouldn't win, deathrattling a giant AoE.

But then more time passed and hyper-aggressive Shadow comps featuring, of course, Vol'jin, started to pop up. Sylvanas instead saw play here as a Face-Hunter-style card, not a closer. Her Abilities are all technically Shadow-schooled-- she gets affected by Volly-Jay's Ring of Haste! Lightning-speed zapping for Green Damage, something Shadow Comps often struggle with, became a new way to slay.

But then we came full circle, and MAM arrived: Malf Anduin Mukla was the opener, Death Volley Sylvanas was the closer. The focus re-shifted back to her Task 7 Equipment, and she became a ticking time bomb you could rely on.

Aggro decks might still favor her on Mourneblade if she tries to open, but Control likes her as a finisher-- if you can convince yourself to not play Cairne Diablo.

Task Priority: Medium-High-- Mourneblade is Sylvanas' best early Equipment, starting at Level 30, but she then needs Death Volley for play in things like MAM. She then doesn't really have anything to spend Coins on until she gets to 30. Upgrading Banshee Bolt's Speed is cute and all but Sylvanas isn't exactly a PvE Merc.

Best Equipment: Rigged Wiring (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Mad Bomber (1.7), Corrupted Ancient (2.5)

Okay, who had it? "Tavish Stormpike Is The Super Nuts" on your Bingo card-- if you've got it, you got me.

One of the most unexpected stories of the early weeks of Mercenaries, Tavish Stormpike in all his fiery-red glory came out Traps Blazing. After getting a sneaky-huge buff to his Health right before release, Tavish now beefs all the way up to 93 Health when fully maxed, the highest in the game!

But Tavish the Immovable Object most importantly comes carrying one of the highest priority Equipment, and the reason he gets so huge: Rigged Wiring. This Task 7 lets you stack Traps without fear of them disappearing if un-popped with a free flat +10 Health to boot.

All of a sudden the unplayable Dwarf Hunter that once went for Explosive Traps and whiffed now says, "Every two turns I get a guaranteed AoE for 48+ until I die, and a Crit for 40 on Casters every turn between."

(Remember: Fighters that destroy Casters effectively are a very high priority for almost any comp, especially ones that can do it all by themselves like Tavish.)

The last time a Dwarf was this strong, Brann was combo-ing off in Standard. Prepare to grind to Task 7, but get rewarded at the top!

Task Priority: Mandatory-- Rigged Wiring is the best reason to play Tavish. If you could otherwise go for a Trap and get punished by not taking damage, the blowout is just too disastrous. However, as always, this does mean that you can take advantage of that fact and just go for the mind-games... but why bother? Rigged Wiring is so good with the Health buff on top of smoothing out his DPS that it just gets you the best of both worlds. But if you want to get fancy, try High Powered Rounds and maximize your DPS instead of smoothing it out.

Best Equipment: Ashbringer (Level 30)

Coin Farms: Baron Geddon (4.5), Razorgore (4.10)

I've been trying my hardest to sing Tirion's praises, but after Blessing of Kings got tanked down from an expected 1 Cooldown to 2 on release day, he might've lost too much luster.

That being said, Judgement of Humility is a super-fast anti-Fighter option with a lot of cool upsides (Samuro who?) and Blessing of Kings is still "Counterspell"-- kinda. But now you're spending a Green Guy to counter a Green Guy (why not just go Red?) and if you guess wrong on who you try to Kings-- you get blown out. Also if that target dies before you Kings you can even shield your opponent's Mercs. Yikes.

Task Priority: Very Low-- Tirion's Equipment is all just gravy. His entire kit revolves around his Abilities, not necessarily much else, but Ashbringer is his Level 30 piece that gives you a lot of stats. Being able to pump your Bench when Tirion dies means "please Open with me," but his Turn 1 action is so terribly medium-- attack you for A Little. Exactly lining up the Deathblow is tough, but that would be the best way to recoup his weak early game. Take Ashbringer but focus on upgrading Judgement of Humility with your first Coins and feel good about it.

Best Equipment: Band of the Wilds (Task 7)-- but realistically Elune's Charm (Level 30)

Coin Farms: Raven the Hunter (2.1), Xaravan (2.4)

Tyrande is one of the decent F2P options you get from the Tutorial, and alongside Millhouse will get you a long way. The problem is these couple of Mercs are some of the only ones with Arcane-typed Abilities-- until there's more support, they're definitely feeling a bit down.

Bad news over, good news now: Tyrande does have a very cool third ability. Blessing of Elune can copy and perma-speed-up Arcane abilities, and when combined with her Task 7 Equipment she can start to copy Nature spells, too. Now she can slide on up to Malfurion and the rest of The Nature House! Things might get a little weird, but I'm not even sure they know what the best combinations are just yet. Maybe Millhouse's pony can fill in the gaps of their comp.

Task Priority: Low-- Especially since she's a F2P Merc, I wouldn't necessarily suggest investing heavily in Tyrande's Task 7 Equipment, Band of the Wilds, just yet. If you have the other fun Nature stuff and do want to give her a shot I certainly support you, but committing that many Tasks to her is a tough call. Until more Arcane synergies become available I'd just use Tyrande to clear the early game unless you really want to play in the trees. Elune's Charm at Level 30 can give you some free damage that you can smile and nod with for now.

Best Equipment: Unnatural Smoke (Task 2)

Coin Farms: Nefarian (4.13)

Valeera is finally here, and holy moly, does she look like a menace. No Cooldowns, insane Equipment, gigantic damage, a built-in Endurance Aura, and Stealth? Literally what more could you ask for?

Not even this Mercenaries leveling guide knows exactly what to do with her yet. Her place is still being developed, but here are some initial thoughts:

Task Priority: Very High-- Unnatural Smoke, Valeera's Task 2, is her goofy strong "Everyone is Fast Now" Equipment, and easy to get. If Mercenaries PvP has shown us one thing it's that Speed Ups, especially team-wide ones, are meta-defining. The neat thing is that her other Equipment option that's reasonable, Shadow Dagger, can convert her into a super-laser-beam, infinitely-Stealthed Merc where you can live the dream and chain Deathblows over and over. We actually really needed another good Fighter or two, and Valeera (alongside Eudora) seem to have fulfilled our wishes.

Best Equipment: Wyrm Claws (Task 7)

Coin Farms: Fallen Guardians (2.3), Nefarian (4.13)

Just like Alexstrasza, Voone really wishes he had some company-- but he's still out here holding down the fort until more Dragons show up.

Voone has one of the coolest Task 7 Equipments in the game, Wyrm Claws. They turn your Evasive Wyrm into a Double-Striking, Divine-Shielded, 25-Attack Super-Summon that can activate all sorts of other combos. Voone himself can check it next turn to Fire Breath or even just use Axe Throw to trigger Samuro in some aggressive Green-heavy comps.

Task Priority: High-- Voone's Wyrm Claws give you the fun parts of his kit, which is having a big fancy Dragon buddy that makes Voone's own other abilities better. It is Task 7, but it is actually worthwhile. Otherwise, you can try to keep your Dragon alive, perhaps, by not giving it Windfury and instead focusing on Fire Synergies with Dragon's Mark, your Task 2 Equipment.

That's all there is for now-- I hope you found this Hearthstone Mercenaries Leveling Guide for Fighters useful! If you have any questions you can find me on Twitch, where we'll continue to answer all of your questions. Otherwise, stay tuned here at Esports.gg for more Hearthstone news, Mercenaries guides, and so much more.