Budget (Cheap) Hearthstone Decks for the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Meta

Token Druid was going in and out of the meta pretty often, but it’s still one of the most popular Druid archetypes over the history of Hearthstone. The deck’s goal is to build a strong board presence by spawning Tokens and then buffing them. One of Token Druid’s main strengths is the ability to refill the whole board after a clear in just a single turn.

It’s a very balanced Midrange deck with a good mix of everything – Ramp, board floods (with Savage Roar) and a lot of cycle are good in slow matchups, while early removal, Taunts and Feral Rage are very solid cards in fast matchups.

Read the Full Budget Token Druid Deck List Guide

Aggro Secret Hunter was a pretty popular Hunter archetype after the One Night in Karazhan adventure. Thanks to the Cloaked Huntress addition, it was possible to tempo out really heavily with Secrets. With the early game tempo on the Hunter’s side, he was free to deal a lot of face damage with minions and Eaglehorn Bow which constantly gained extra durability. Thanks to a very low mana curve, it’s easy to squeeze in Hero Powers nearly every turn, which is one of the main sources of damage.

The deck is less popular right now (like the whole Hunter class), but it’s still a viable option for the ladder.

Read the Full Budget Aggro Secret Hunter Deck List Guide

Aggro Freeze Mage is one of the most unique decks in this game. It combines the qualities of an Aggro deck (after all, you have some early game drops, a lot of burn and you want to rush down your opponent) with those of a Freeze Mage, which clearly is a Control deck. This Aggro-Control mix is pretty interesting.

The deck’s playstyle revolves around sneaking in as much early minion damage as possible, then cycling through the deck while stalling the game and finishing the opponent with burn in the mid/late game. It might be hard to get used to if it you have never played it before, but the deck is pretty powerful in the right hands.

Read the Full Budget Aggro Freeze Mage Deck List Guide

The deck is based on the Jambre’s Secret Paladin deck, with a few changes and budget cuts. It was still hard to get it in the 2k budget, but I think that it’s worth it – I was playing a similar deck on my alt account with pretty good success.

Even though the deck is called Secret Paladin, Secrets are only a small part of it. As it turns out, Mysterious Challenger doesn’t need a lot of Secrets to work well. It pulling out 2-3 Secrets is already a very strong tempo play. Besides that, the deck is based around Divine Shields and buffs. Those two combo together really well. The deck plays like a pretty aggressive Midrange deck, so you’re not going all-in and try to rush your opponent down, but make the efficient trade by abusing the Divine Shields & Buff combos and then make a big tempo push with Challenger.

Read the Full Budget Secret Paladin Deck List Guide

Sadly, when it comes to the Priest, C'Thun is the only budget option available (because players can get C’Thun for free) and it’s far from optimal right now. But if you really like to play slower decks on budget or you want to play Priest, this one should work in the lower ranks.

C’Thun Priest is a slow, Midrange deck that relies on C’Thun synergies. First you play minions that are slightly below the curve to buff it, but then you get rewarded by, for example, a 20/20 C’Thun with an incredible Battlecry. After you buff it to 10 Attack, you also activate the Twilight Darkmender’s Battlecry, which is an incredibly strong heal on a well-statted body – great against Aggro decks.

The win condition is to play your minions on curve, try to keep them alive with your Hero Power, deal with whatever opponent plays and stall until you play a big C’Thun. If the first C’Thun doesn’t do the job, you can play Doomcaller to shuffle it into your deck again.

Read the Full Budget C’Thun Priest Deck List Guide

Aggro/Tempo Rogue is another way to play Rogue, way different from the popular Miracle Rogue. Rogue is the master of tempo – mostly thanks to the combo mechanic, it can get a lot more stats on the board than it should for the mana cost, but only when you play another card beforehand. That’s one of the reasons why Coin is so strong in the class.

This aggressive deck plays around that theme. It plays efficient, high tempo minions + combo cards + charge minions + buffs to first get the early board control and then rush opponent down. Tempo Rogue can flood the board and then kill the opponent before he notices.

This deck is based on Reynad’s Tempo Rogue, which he climbed to top 200 Legend with a few months ago.

Read the Full Budget Aggro/Tempo Rogue Deck List Guide

Midrange Shaman was one of the strongest decks last expansion and it’s still pretty powerful. What’s cool about it is that it was also one of the cheapest competitive decks. Cards from the expansions are rather cheap (Commons/Rares) and only a few “key” cards are hidden in the adventures.

Midrange Shaman relies on the strong board presence to carry the game. It has multiple ways to fight for the board – small single target removals (Lightning Bolt, Fire Elemental), hard removal (Hex), small and medium AoEs (Maelstrom Portal, Lightning Storm). This deck, compared to the normal version, mostly misses another removal – Spirit Claws – but you should manage without them in lower ranks.

Read the Full Budget Midrange Shaman Deck List Guide

Zoo Warlock is one of the most timeless decks of Hearthstone. Popularized way back in the Beta, it was always one of the most consistent and strong decks. While the early Gadgetzan meta doesn’t shape too well for the Zoo, the deck is still the best budget option for Warlock players, as the only alternative is a very expensive RenoLock.

The deck’s game plan is to play multiple small threats early and control the board through efficient trades, boosted by buffs or random pings. Zoo deck is very snowbally – once it gets the board control, it’s really hard to take it back. Minions get buffed, stats are growing, more minions are played, while Warlock Life Taps every turn to not run out of steam. On the other hand, board is everything for the Zoo player – you take it away, a lot of the cards will become worthless.

Zoo is one of the decks I always recommend to new players, as it teaches them that even when playing an aggressive deck, rushing the face and ignoring the board completely is rarely a good idea.

Read the Full Budget Warlock Zoo Deck List Guide

Pirate Warrior is one of the strongest and most popular decks in the current meta. Since the games are very fast, usually decided by turn 5-6, it’s a great deck choice to grind the ladder with. The deck was already solid pre-Gadgetzan, and new early Pirate additions made it even better.

Pirate Warrior is one of those all-in Aggro decks, where outside of some early game trades, you generally don’t care about what your opponent’s game plan is and what he does – you want to punch his face with everything you have and kill him before he can stabilize.

The deck is filled with a lot of aggressive minions, Charge minions, weapons, weapon buffs and direct damage – everything to deal as much face damage as possible in short time.

Read the Full Budget Aggro Pirate Warrior Deck List Guide