Hearthstone Budget Decks For Whizbang’s Workshop, Cheap Decks for Laddering in Hearthstone!

One of the big complaints about Hearthstone is the price to pay (to play) when you first start. There are a ton of Legendaries released, and if you are unlucky you may have not received much in the way of playable cards. This is unfortunate, so we’ve gone ahead and created some budget decks that should serve you well if you are in the Bronze or Silver divisions. Some of the stronger builds should be viable throughout Gold and possibly even Platinum if you master them. We don’t recommend those decks in Diamond or to attempt a Legend climb, unless you replace some of the budget cards and turn them into actual meta decks. You CAN hit Legend with some of them, but you would really need to master them and play very well, and by that time you most likely will have enough resources to build a full version anyway.

The game is in a better state than it was a while ago. The new free Core Set, as well as the current rewards system, are both pretty generous (at least by the old Hearthstone Standard). We’re also commonly getting other free stuff like packs, Legendaries etc. during expansion releases, events and from outside of the game (e.g. Twitch drops). While things have gotten much better for new and F2p players, it’s hard to deny that the game is still quite expensive. F2P players should easily be able to build one or two full meta decks per expansion, but the issue is that they can’t play whatever they want. So once they commit to crafting some cards, if they want to switch to another class – tough luck! That’s why we think that those budget decks can come really handy. No matter if you want to do Daily Quests for another class, test a deck before crafting a full version or just play around with different options, they should be a good option for new and F2P players alike.

Defining a Budget Deck

We’re trying our best to keep the budget decks as cheap as possible while making them as strong as we can. Overall, there’s no hard cutoff, but we try to keep the decks within the 2-3k Dust range (Dust cost listed next to decks below isn’t always accurate, since it includes cards that are given away for free). However, their real cost is usually much lower, because players tend to own a lot of Commons / Rares used in them already.

When it comes to Commons & Rares – it’s simple, all of them are allowed. It’s very easy to get a full Common & Rare collection (doubly so with the recent addition of Catch-Up Packs), and even if you’re missing some of them, they’re cheap to craft.

As for the Epics – if it’s not possible, we try to not include them. If a deck can be built with no Epics at all, that’s great. However, that is sadly quite rare. Epics are often key cards in a given build, so removing them is either impossible or would drop the deck’s win rate by a lot. Even in the worst-case scenario, we try to keep it down to a few Epics, but if choosing between a deck that has to include four Epics and a completely unplayable deck, we’ll choose the former. Playing a deck that virtually can’t win any games is just not fun.

Legendaries are completely excluded UNLESS they are available for free. This includes all of the Core Set Legendaries, as well as Legendaries that were given out for free in the current Standard rotation (e.g. Pozzik, Audio Engineer – if you don’t have it, all you need to do is buy a single Festival of Legends pack and go to the pack opening screen, you will get the card automatically). For this reason, if you are a new player or you just came back after a long break, you should get at least 1 pack from each Standard expansion to collect all those free Legendaries.

Whizbang’s Workshop Update

Let me start with one simple request –ย please craft Zilliax Deluxe 3000.ย No matter whether you’re a new player, a returning player, or just someone who stays F2P, CRAFT ZILLIAX. It’s by far the best card from this expansion and probably the most flexible Legendary card released ever. Different module combinations see play in different meta decks, so you’re essentially getting a few strong Legendary cards for the cost of one. Of course, since this is a post about budget decks, I did not include Zilliax in any of the decks, but the truth is that he would fit nearly every single one of them.

But now let’s talk about budget decks in Whizbang’s Workshop. Given that it’s the first expansion of a year, basically every budget deck from the previous compilation went down the drain because so many cards have rotated out to Wild. This made it really difficult to figure out viable decks for a few of the classes, but overall I think the budget situation in the expansion isn’t bad at all. We have a few actually decently powerful decks that are just a few cards away from the meta builds. Those are the decks you can reasonably climb to higher ranks with, assuming you master them. Then we have a few mediocre decks – not terrible, but won’t likely get you far without some serious changes. And, just like always, there are a few outliers, decks I wouldn’t really recommend playing unless you really need them for some reason (like finishing a Quest). Overall I rate this expansion’s budget decks as good, but not amazing – we had some better budget expansions, but as you will see soon, some of those decks look quite exciting.

Free Legendaries from this expansion were frankly quite horrible (Colifero the Artist and Li'Na, Shop Manager – neither of which is played in any meta deck right now). However, we had some cool cards rotating into the Core Set, Leeroy Jenkins in particular is still holding up after all those years. It’s a great card in any faster deck that needs extra reach.

Harth Stonebrew is another interesting Legendary we got for free quite recently. In fact, if you fancy it, you can throw him into almost any deck and he will work fine. The quality of “iconic hands” varies drastically. They also often depend on the matchup – sometimes they take multiple turns to set up and if you play against a faster deck they won’t cut it, others don’t have any particular synergy and are just a bunch of pretty good cards.ย But what’s important is that they are full hand refills, so if you’re running low on cards you can just drop Harth and then you have steam for a few more turns. And some of them can give you a win condition out of nowhere.

Cheap Hearthstone Decks


Deck Import

Death Knight is doing quite well in Whizbang’s Workshop. A build similar to this was very popular in the first days of the expansion. Ultimately it turned out that Handbuff synergies aren’t the strongest Death Knight package and Rainbow build went in a different direction. But for the sake of budget decks, this is the best we have.

The idea behind this deck is quite simple. You play lots of Undead minions and ways to buff them while they are still in your hand. Amateur Puppeteer is an amazing card, because playing both the main one and the mini gives all Undead in your hand +4/+4. If you add Lesser Spinel Spellstone (which is quite easy to pump up to +3/+3), it can really stack up.

Then the deck has a bunch of minions that synergize very well with handbuffs. Both Shambling Zombietank and Nerubian Swarmguard summon extra copies, so they double/triple-dip on handbuffs. Then there’s Darkthorn Quilter who deals more damage with his effect the more Attack he has (again, synergizing with handbuffs). And last, but not least, Hollow Hound has great synergy with Handbuffs, attacking multiple targets, healing you to full life, and most likely still surviving.

Other good synergies include Acolyte of Death or Sickly Grimewalker and Crop Rotation. The first combo draws you 4 cards (and maybe more if you already have some Undead on board you can trade) while the second one gives your 1/1’s Poisonous, meaning that they can bring down some big minions. Grimewalker also combos nicely with Darkthorn Quilter – if you give him Poisonous, his pings will just kill everything they hit.

The deck is missing a pair of Epics (2x Rainbow Seamstress) and quite a few Legendaries. You really want to add Maw and Paw, The Primus and Reska, the Pit Boss. But maybe most importantly Climactic Necrotic Explosion, which is the main Rainbow payoff card. However, if you’re crafting all of those, I would probably recommend dropping the handbuff package which has been a bit underperforming. Handbuff builds aren’t terrible, so if you’re having fun you can stick with them, but they just aren’t optimal.ย You can find some better Rainbow Death Knight builds here.


Deck Import

Our second budget deck is the current meta tyrant. At the time I’m posting this, Blizzard already announced a nerf to Umpire's Grasp (it will go up from 3 to 4 mana), but the deck should still be the best budget option for Demon Hunter, just not as good as before it.

Your main combo in this deck is Umpire's Grasp + Window Shopper. When you trigger Grasp’s Deathrattle, you draw a 3 mana Shopper. Not only it’s a 3 mana 6/5 minion (which is quite good), but the Demon you Discover is also a 3 mana 6/5. Then you have a 1 mana 1/1 version that Discovers a 1 mana 1/1 Demon. The best part about this combo is that the current pool of Demons is quite small and it includes lots of great options. Magtheridon, Unreleased is probably your best pick no matter what. The card is just insane when you can get it for low cost. It deals 3 AoE damage to every enemy for two turns in a row. Dropping it so early, they will have a hard time establishing any board and it will also basically Fireball them in the face. And there’s no way to deal with it as Dormant minions can’t be interacted with. Other good picks include Illidari Inquisitor, Abyssal Bassist and Mythical Terror (for the initial 6/5) and Observer of Mysteries / Tough Crowd (for the Mini version).

Other than the Grasp + Shopper combo, the deck is mostly high tempo minions or burn cards. In case you don’t draw your main combo, you still need a way to kill your opponent. You want to be as aggressive as possible, drop everything you can on the board, and then try to close the game with straight damage. You can do a lot of burn from hand with Burning Heart, Parched Desperado, Spirit of the Team, Metamorphosis etc. And if a Taunt stands in your way, Kayn Sunfury can also be a very useful tool.

The deck is actually quite close to a full meta build. The only two cards you really want are Zilliax Deluxe 3000 and Red Card. Red Card is there mostly for two reasons – first one is tempo (if you make one of your opponent’s minios dormant for 1 mana you can outtempo them temporarily, and even though it will come back online soon, it might not be enough) and the second one is to play on your Discovered Magtheridons once they wake up (you get two more turns of AoE damage). As for Zilliax, you can either use the Haywire Module + Power Module (4 mana 5/7 that deals 3 damage to your Hero each turn) or Pylon Module + Ticking Module (8 mana 3/5 that buffs your whole board by +1/+1 and gets cheaper with each minion in play). You can find some full builds of Aggro Demon Hunter here.


Deck Import

This is a very fun deck, I really liked it during my playtesting. However, at the same time, it’s not a great deck. Druid in general is not doing great in this expansion, I would argue that it’s the worst Standard class right now. So you can probably imagine that the budget deck of the worst class might be a bit underwhelming.

Your main win condition with this deck is, as the name suggests, Hero Power. You run the old Festival of Legends package of Free Spirit + Groovy Cat, buffing your Hero Power. As you can probably imagine, you want to play them as soon as you can, that’s why you also run a lot of card draw. Peaceful Piper in particular always tutors one of them because they are the only Beasts in your deck. Bottomless Toy Chest is another great way to get them, you really want to have Spell Damage when doing it (usually from Magical Dollhouse) so maybe you can get one extra copy. Of course, the Spell Damage is useful not only for extra Discovers, but also for your Swipes (both regular and the ones from Malfurion's Gift) and Jasper Spellstone. Swipe in Particular is a great card now that it costs 3, with +1 Spell Damage (which is very easy thanks to Dollhouse)

But your real win condition comes later. Once you buff your Hero Power, get Attack to 5 in particular, you can do some serious mid-late game damage. The idea is to play Sing-Along Buddy, Hero Power (10 damage) and then refresh your Hero Power with Popular Pixie and do it again (20 damage). Between your earlier Hero Powers, Swipes etc. that’s often enough to just kill your opponent. Of course, you’re out of luck if you play against Warrior, because they can outarmor any damage you can deal, but there’s sadly nothing you can do about it.

Alternatively, if the combo fails to win the game or you can’t find it, Harth Stonebrew is always an option. Maybe he will give you another win condition.

If you want to improve this deck, you should probably add one copy of Joymancer Jepetto, which increases your late game potential and actually gives you a way to win vs Warrior (sometimes). He gives you back both copies of Free Spirit and Groovy Cat, which in turn can buff your Hero Power up to +9 Attack and +9 Armor. That’s often enough to just power through the Armor, especially since the combo that dealt 20 damage now deals 36 damage. At the same time, the deck is painfully slow to get rolling, so if you have a choice, I would rather work towards Dragon Druid or Reno Druid instead if you really like the class. But as I’ve said in the beginning, Druid is just not doing that well at the time I’m writing this.


Deck Import

Face Hunter, on the other hand, is actually quite powerful. Ever since the expansion’s launch, it’s been consistently one of the strongest classes. Doubly so at lower ranks, which I imagine is where you might want to play a budget deck. While this version is still missing some cards, it’s not actually bad and it can secure lots of wins on the ladder in this state.

Gameplay of this deck is quite simple – make big board, go face, repeat if cleared. You’ll be the one putting pressure on your opponent most of the time, so take advantage of that. Try to force them to trade instead of doing it yourself (unless the trade is really good, of course), make your boards awkward for your opponent to deal with. Jungle Gym works really well as either removal (especially vs multiple smaller minions) or burn damage. You can easily get off at least like 4-5 pings from it (max you can deal is 7, which usually happens after playing Rampage), and then repeat it two more times. Then you can try to finish your opponent off with the mix of your Hero Power, Kill Command and Leeroy Jenkins. The deck is more board-focused than a classic Face Hunter, but it still has plenty of reach.

Two main ways to improve it is by adding Saddle Up! and – of course – Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Pylon Module + Ticking Module). As for the Saddle Up, I had to pick between it and R.C. Rampage because of the Epic limit, but it’s just a great card in a deck that creates a wide board over and over again. Zilliax is great for the same reason – wide board means that you can play it for cheap and then buff your entire board. Dropping Zilliax on Turn 3-4 can often just win you the game, because it pushes so much extra damage and makes your board extra resistant. Other than those two cards, one more you can add is Aggramar, the Avenger – it’s not necessary, but it makes closing down the games easier. Giving the weapon +2 Attack makes it a 5/3, often providing more than enough burn. Alternatively, if you’re not close to winning yet, it can give you some extra card draw instead. You can find some full lists here.


Deck Import

This deck almost solely relies on cards released earlier. The only new additions are Triplewick Trickster and Sleet Skater and while they aren’t bad, they did not vastly improve the deck. Elemental Mage still kind of sucks (not as bad as some other budget decks, mind you). So why use this as a budget deck? Well, it’s simple – Rainbow Mage (the only good Mage deck we have right now) needs Legendaries, Mech Mage (what we previously had as a budget) has rotated out, and Mage didn’t really get anything great this expansion. Spell Mage was the main focus of Whizbang’s Workshop and it completely flopped. In fact a full Spell Mage deck has a way worse win rate than this sort of budget Elemental Mage – yep, that’s really bad.

But let’s focus on what we have. The deck is really straightforward – your main goal is to simply not break your Elemental chain. This is extra important in this deck – in the past, you could often afford to skip one turn and then continue playing Elementals again to activate their effects. But not here. I really don’t like this design decision, but Overflow Surger and Azerite Giant, which are some of your main bombs, really need you to keep playing Elementals every turn or else they get reset. Because of that, you can’t really play spells in your deck – waste a turn on a spell instead of another Elemental and you have to start over. That’s why the only spells you run either give you an Elemental too (Flame Geyser) or are often used as burn spells to close out the match, at the time you don’t need to keep up your chain anymore.

And that’s pretty much all there is to your deck. You want to play Elemental after Elemental on curve, then close out the game with some burn damage if you’re close to killing them. The deck can actually deal a surprising amount of burn damage with Triplewick Trickster and Tainted Remnant, while Sleet Skater is a cool stall tool. Azerite Giants should cost like 3-4 mana in the mid game, and Surger should summon a full board of 3/2’s.

If you’re asking how to improve this deck – Mes'Adune the Fractured is honestly the only card you can add (hitting Trickster or Remnant is big, gives you lots of extra burn), but you shouldn’t craft it for the purpose of this deck. I thought about Therazane but I don’t think you should play her, she’s just too slow. You drop her on 7 and by that time you’re usually looking to close out the game and not buff your hand/deck. You rarely have enough minions in your hand to really take advantage of that anyway. If you’re looking for a more viable Mage deck, you might want to try Rainbow Mage instead. But a word of warning – the deck is very difficult to master, it’s good if you really want to stick with the class, but if you just look for a casual way to finish some Quests, I wouldn’t recommend it.


Deck Import

Paladin was a dominant force early into the expansion, but things have quickly shifter after the first balance update. I think that Blizzard overreacted a bit and nerfed one too many cards, pushing Paladin down to Tier 3 instead of the usual Tier 2 you target with nerfs. Still, it doesn’t mean that the class is doing incredibly poorly, especially when we only look at budget decks. There are two ways to build Paladin right now – leaning more towards Handbuffs and towards Aggro. Handbuff is the deck that was punished the most, and it’s definitely the most expensive build, so that’s why I’ve decided to go with Aggro for this budget build.

Just like with most Aggro decks your goal is to, well, kill your opponent. You really have two main ways of doing it. The first one is a very simple early pressure into Crusader Aura. The card is insane if you’re ahead on the board, buffing whatever can attack for 3 turns in a row is very good. And even if your opponent manages to clear the board, you have some ways to immediately utilize this effect, such as Showdown!, Tigress Plushy (and the mini) and of course Leeroy Jenkins, if that’s enough to kill your opponent that is. Don’t underestimate Crusader Aura – sometimes an early board push into Crusader Aura can win you a game by itself.

However, the second win con is probably more interesting. As it turns out, putting 6 minions on the board for 2 mana (Showdown!) has insane synergy with cards that get cheaper with more minions. In particular, this budget deck runs Sea Giants and Prismatic Beam. The best way to utilize this combo is usually against opponent who has a couple small minions on the board already. Then you play Showdown, drop your Giant(s), and clear the entire enemy board with Prismatic Beam. This is an insane tempo push and can often be played as early as Turn 4-5.

If we look at how the deck can be improved, it’s very simple. First, run the other good Epic – Flash Sale. I had to pick between it and Showdown because of the limit and Showdown is just a key card to this strategy. Flash Sale is, however, also great – even if you have just 2-3 minions on the board, it gives them all +1/+2 AND summons a 2/4 with Taunt and Divine Shield. Unlike Aura, you can also combo it with minions that don’t have Rush, so e.g. playing Muster for Battle + Flash Sale is a good Turn 7 combo. And the other card that is – you guessed it – Zilliax Deluxe 3000. Again, the Pylon Module + Ticking Module combo is insanely powerful in this deck. During your Showdown turn, you can usually drop him for 0 mana, so you might not even need Prismatic Beam to make it work. You can, for example, do something like Showdown + Zilliax + Flash Sale on Turn 6 and then just trade your Rush minions into their 3/3’s. Other than that, you have a full meta deck. However, if you have some more Dust to invest, I would look towards Handbuff Paladin instead, because it’s still performing slightly better despite all the nerfs.


Deck Import

Please don’t play this deck. I really, really tried to make Priest work on the budget, but it’s just impossible. This is like a 35-40% win rate deck even in its full form, and I had to cut so many cards to stick to the budget. That’s why below I’ll present a semi-budget deck running a single Legendary – Timewinder Zarimi. Right now it’s the only card that keeps the Priest class afloat, so if you want to play Priest, you just need to craft Zarimi.

If you really want to try it out, you have two win conditions (well, three if you count Harth). The first one is Automatons – you play them, copy them, they grow bigger. But it’s just too slow. In the current meta people can often effortlessly drop huge minions on Turn 4-5 and you need to work really hard to make your Automatons big. The second win condition is simply Ignis, the Eternal Flame. Instead of copying Automatons, you can copy Ignis if you draw him. Start with 5 mana weapon to gain some momentum and then pick some good 10 mana weapons and hope that they will carry you. And yeah, there’s also Harth, which might work if you get lucky with the iconic hand you get.

But the deck is still missing multiple key expensive cards and I really don’t recommend crafting them for this deck specifically, it’s just bad.


Deck Import

So here we are, I consider this the real budget Priest deck even though it’s not really budget. I still had to cut a few Legendaries from the full version but this deck is actually playable. Not only playable – it’s pretty good (not as good as full version, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers).

The idea behind this deck is that getting extra turns is probably the most overpowered mechanic ever printed in card games. Extra turns means that you can do things while your opponent keeps sitting around not being able to do anything. In this case, Blizzard was smart enough to put “once per game” limit on Zarimi, but even a single extra turn is big. Especially if you consider how minions work in Hearthstone – they can’t attack the turn they are summoned. But if you can summon a bunch of them AND gain an extra turn, you essentially give them Charge. And that’s the main strategy of this deck.

Your first goal is to draw cards and simply survive. Use Crimson Clergy with Funnel Cake and Dreamboat to get extra cards. Play Scale Replica to draw your Zarimi. The next step is to play the required 5 Dragons to activate Zarimi. This shouldn’t be very hard, because even if you count Whelp Wrangler as one Dragons (even though it will sometimes stick around to give you more), you run 8 in your base deck. Then there’s also Celestial Projectionist and Power Chord: Synchronize to get more if you’re missing some. While it will usually just come naturally by playing the match, getting Thirsty Drifter to 0 mana is also important.

Now that you’re at 5 Dragons it’s time to play Zarimi. Of course, sometimes the turn you get to 5 Dragons will be the same turn you play Zarimi, but it really depends on the game. The idea is to try to drop as many stats as possible on the same turn as Zarimi. For example, you can play Zarimi + Thirsty Drifter + Celestial Projectionist on Drifter to get the second one. That puts 15 damage on the board. Then the next turn you might finish it off with Leeroy Jenkins or Glowstone Gyreworm for even more damage. Even this kind of basic combo can often deal 20+, but there are still ways to increase it. Having any minions on the board prior to the combo turn, dropping an extra Drifter, maybe waiting another turn to e.g. get a Giftwrapped Whelp on the board (if it hits Zarimi then you get extra 4 damage on your combo turn).

Against decks that don’t run big AoE removal, you can try playing Zarimi as soon as you can. Since you don’t have to worry about them clearing your whole board, making a big Zarimi turn with multiple Drifters is often enough to win the game even if they are out of reach. Sometimes tempo is king and you don’t need the combo.

The amount of stats you can put seems a bit low, but that’s mostly because this is a budget version and budget version doesn’t run Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (yeah, this card again). Pylon + Ticking Module version of Zilliax is insane in this build. Not only you can often play it for free during your Zarimi turn, it buffs your whole board for more damage, but you can also often copy it and play it a second time to get an even bigger buff. Other than Zilliax, full version runs a few more Legendaries. Pip the Potent is great because you have so many good 1-cost cards, and it makes discounting your Drifters to 0 mana much easier. You also want to run Aman'Thul simply because it’s a good card, especially the removal bit. You might stare at a board you normally can’t deal with and Aman’thul can usually answer it by removing the two biggest minions. And finally, Magatha, Bane of Music – it’s not a must-have, but this deck might struggle if you hit a few dead draws and don’t get Crimson Clergy to cycle. While it will often give a couple of spells to your opponent, all of your key cards are minions to you don’t have to worry about that.


Deck Import

Rogue is also not doing great this expansion. It’s not unplayable, but it doesn’t have a really strong, standout deck. The best you can do is Draw/Shuffle/Miracle Rogue (however you want to call it), and it’s not even that expensive, but it runs multiple Epics that are just 100% necessary to play it, so I couldn’t fit it within the budget rules. Then there’s Zilliax Rogue, but as the name suggests, your main card is Zilliax Deluxe 3000, so again not possible on budget. But guess what, there’s a deck you can actually build for cheap, and it’s one that made a return after so many years. I’m talking about Spectral Cutlass Rogue.

Your main and basically only win condition (again, other than Harth, but I always count him as a backup because some hands simply don’t win you the game) is Cutlass. The idea is to draw it as soon as possible (you have a lot of natural draw, but also Instrument Tech and Raiding Party to tutor it) and then keep attacking your opponent every turn while buffing it. There are two ways to buff the card. First, you want to get its Attack up because a 2 Attack weapon isn’t killing anyone. You have Deadly Poison, Valeera's Gift for more Poisons, Harmonic Hip Hop and Mic Drop.ย Throughout the match, you should be able to get your weapon up to 10+ Attack, and that gets into the threatening territory.

Then you want to buff the weapon’s Durability to keep it alive for as long as you can. You do it by simply playing cards from other classes. You have plenty of ways to get them (Swashburglar, Stick Up, Kaja'mite Creation, Thistle Tea Set), so it shouldn’t be a problem. Then in the late game, you can also use Tess Greymane to repeat all of the cards from other classes. It’s not amazing since you are usually picking cheaper stuff to be able to play them each turn, but you can sometimes get a banger or two. Plus she also repeast cards from Harth if you get a hand from different class (which is very likely).

Of course, the main issue with the deck is that before you get your Cutlass rolling, you’re doing almost nothing. So any faster deck can easily outtempo you with better draws. So then it’s the question of whether you can come back thanks to Lifesteal or was their push enough. This deck also suffers a bit as a collateral damage of Aggro Demon Hunter being so popular – many players are teaching in Freeze cards (such as Glacial Shard) and they are very powerful against Cutlass Rogue too.

There are two main ways to improve this deck. First, and most important one is Sonya Waterdancer. She makes your Deadly Poisons and Gifts so much better. You can double dip on Deadly Poisonous and quadruple dip on Gift. Yep – a single Gift with Sonya is 4x Deadly Poison for only 2 mana. It makes buffing your weapon to high values so much easier. The second card is Velarok Windblade, which works well with your “Thief” package. But, in all honesty, even if you build a full deck it won’t be the best performer. So unless you really want to play it because you find it fun, I would recommend trying out Draw Rogue or Zilliax Rogue instead. They aren’t the strongest meta deck but they are still better than Cutlass build.


Deck Import

The general consensus was that Burn Shaman, Nature Shaman, OTK Shaman, however you want to call it, will be dead after Bioluminescence has rotated out of Standard. After all, it was a key part of your combo – giving your entire board Spell Damage to throw in some high damage spells at your opponent. However, the reports of its death were greatly exaggerated. The deck is still alive in kicking – Blizzard even had to nerf it early into the expansion (by replacing Lightning Bolt with Lightning Storm in Thrall's Gift). It’s also less of an “OTK” deck and more of a “burn” deck. Sometimes you win with a single, pop-off turn, but lots of the time you will just chip away at your opponent’s health to bring them down in range.

Think of this deck as of an Aggro deck with a big combo turn potential. It’s not a deck where you want to hold back your pieces, unless you have a really specific hand. Most of the time you want to get on the board and try to deal some damage this way. For example, Turn 1 Novice Zapper is usually a good play, especially if you can follow it up with another 1-drop (especially Flowrider). Play Spirit Claws when you have Spell Damage on the board to soften up your opponent or remove some pressure from the enemy side. If you play against Aggro, you will have to use some of your combo pieces as removal, it’s better to have less damage potential than die. Crash of Thunder is especially powerful – with +2 Spell damage it deals 5 AoE damage which should be enough to bring down most of the big early and mid game threats.

Then, once you either brought your opponent low enough or gathered enough burn pieces in your hand (or both), you want to play Flash of Lightning to set up your combo. Discounting all of your Nature spells means that Lightning Bolt, Lightning Reflexes and Pop-Up Book all cost 0. Lightning Reflexes is the MVP here, because the current pool of Nature spells is so small that you’re almost guaranteed to Discover some burn spell. Crash of Thunder also costs 0 by the time you play it. So the idea is that you want to drop a bunch of Spell Damage minions on the board and then start throwing burn spells at your opponent. 2-3 Spell Damage is usually enough to kill them, unless they are Warrior of course. Remember that Snake Oil from Miracle Salesman can also be used as a source of burn damage – it deals 0 damage, but it gets improved by Spell Damage. So with +3 Spell Damage on board it’s now 3 damage for 0 mana. Not much in the grand scheme of things but can be a difference between win and loss. Overdraft can also be played with Spell Damage even if you have no locked Mana Crystals. Of course by the timeย  you finish your combo you usually are Overloaded a bit, but even when you aren’t, you can still play it for some extra burn.

As for how you can improve this deck – there are two ways really. The first one is Golganneth, the Thunderer. The card is just great – it can be used as an AoE board clear (plus some extra burn) and heal, it can be used to deal with a single big minion (useful against Warlocks for example) or it can be used to draw 3 cards (the best option against decks that put little pressure). Also, if it sticks on the board, the discount it gives will make your combo turn easier (but it’s not really necessary). It’s just a great Shaman card. The second card you should consider adding is Photographer Fizzle. The card is mostly there against classes that can gain Armor like Warrior and Druid. Just before your combo turn, when you have a really solid hand with lots of burn, play Fizzle. Then even if your combo won’t kill them, you will have another shot after you draw the Snapshot (and Flowrider should Discover it pretty consistently). But even in faster matchups, you can play it before using a few or your burn cards as board clear, for example.


Deck Import

The last expansion was a rollercoaster for Sludge Warlock. First, the deck was weak, then it got buffed, but it turns out that Blizzard overdid it, so they had to nerf it again. By the end of the expansion, it ended up somewhere in Tier 2 – it was a really solid deck, but no longer dominating. Many people thought that it’s going to be very powerful in Whizbang’s Workshop because it lost almost nothing in the rotation. However, it turns out that the power level of the new expansion was WAY higher than people expected, so despite staying intact it was still overwhelmed by new builds. However, one of its biggest advantages is that it’s cheap, so it’s quite easy to play it on the budget. You’re missing a few cards from the full build but it’s still very much playable.

The deck is built around Barrel of Sludge – you can’t add them directly, but they are generated by multiple cards. They are pretty weak if you play them from your hand – 3 mana deal 4 damage to the lowest health character is meh. However, the idea behind them is that they also get played if you Destroy them, Discard them and so on. And that’s what the deck is built around. Your cards add Sludges to your hand and to the bottom of your deck. Then you run Discard cards that get rid of them from your hand and cards that Destroy stuff from the bottom of your deck (so in both cases they play Sludges for free). The strategy hasn’t changed since the last expansion. In fact, the only two “new” cards are a pair of Doomguards that were freshly added to the Core Set. Not only a 5 mana 5/7 with Charge is really powerful, but Discarding 2 cards is often an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

Gameplay is quite simple – play on curve, get as much stuff on your board as you can while slowly generating Sludges. Then play the cards that get rid of Sludges for big tempo gain. Repeat until the game is over, one way or the other. There’s really no deeper strategy here.

As for the cards you can use to improve this budget version, there are only two you really need. Trolley Problem is the one I had to cut because of the Epic limit, but it’s just a great card. Not only it’s 2x 3/3 with Rush for 3 mana with no disadvantage the turn you draw it, but later you can usually turn that disadvantage into advantage. If you set up your hand so the lowest cost spell is Sludge, then you can play it and just pop the Sludge from your hand while still summoning 3/3’s. Then we have Pop'gar the Putrid which is a must-have if you want to play this deck seriously. It generates more Sludges, it discounts yourย  Fel spells (so not only Sludges, but also Crescendo and Chaos Creation), but most importantly – it lets you heal up. It’s often a lifesaver against Aggro decks. Other than those, Symphony of Sins is something you, but it’s not strictly necessary. And, just like always, you can also fit Zilliax Deluxe 3000 – either Haywire + Power Modules or Pylon + Ticking Modules.


Deck Import

Building Warrior on budget is incredibly awkward. When Enrage build was still in rotation, it was way easier, because it wasn’t strictly built around some Legendary cards. However, right now Warriors really only have to viable routes – Odyn, Prime Designate deck and Deepminer Brann deck. And, as you can probably see, both of those are Legendaries. They are also build-around Legendaries which means that if you don’t have them, their respective decks completely fall apart by losing main win conditions. That’s why the only thing I could sort of come up with is this build. It relies on some synergies from Whizbang’s Workshop – mainly Big Mechs and Boom Wrench, but also Chemical Spill to a lesser degree. It might seem like a Control deck at a first glance, but it’s really more of a Combo build.

The basic idea is quite simple. You want to survive the early/mid game, gain some Armor, draw cards, just do anything that stalls the game and keeps you alive. And then, in the mid-late game, you can start doing your combos. You have two ways to win the game – big Mechs or Grom. Let’s start with Big Mechs because they are probably more interesting. Your key card here is Boom Wrench. You want to play it and attack once to set it up for the next turn. Then that next turn you want to play a big Mech, DON’T HIT YET, replace your 3/1 Wrench with the 1/1 mini version to trigger the Deathrattle of the first one, then attack with the second one to trigger its Deathrattle again. This way you can double trigger Deathrattle of any big Mech you play. So you an either deal 16 random damage with Testing Dummy or summon two random 8-Cost minions with Containment Unit. If you can’t afford waiting too long for this combo, you can always use Chemical Spill to summon one of them from your hand for 5 mana instead of paying the full cost (Spill is more useful with Grom, but it’s still a good card with big Mechs).

Your second win condition is Grommash Hellscream. This time when you have Grom in hand, you want to play Chemical Spill. It summons him and deals 5 damage immediately, making him a 10/4 minion with Charge. So you’re paying 5 mana and two cards to get Leeroy Jenkins on steroids. But the best thing is that you can now easily copy him with Battleworn Faceless, so for 8 mana you can summon two 10/4’s with Charge. That’s 20 damage out of nowhere while still leaving two massive minions on the board in case you don’t win.

In reality, you usually have to combine two strategies into one to secure the victory. And even them it will be tough because the deck is just a bit awkward + it’s still missing some important cards.

Well, talking about important cards, by far the most important one you’re missing is Inventor Boom. It makes your Mech combos so much better because after doing all those shenanigans, if your board gets cleared, you can just resumon two big Mechs again – and they get some immediate attacks! If you face some minions, they will probably clear something and if not, they will just hit face (which is also great). Another card you want to add is Wreck'em and Deck'em – it doesn’t work with Grom, but you can use it on one of your big Mechs to get an instant attack and then immediately trigger its Deathrattle. So, for example, playing it on Containment unit will give you 6 damage vs random target + a random 8-Cost minion. Technically you can consider adding Zilliax Deluxe 3000. The best combo is probably Twin + Perfect (2x 6/5 with Taunt, Divine Shield, Rush and Lifesteal) but the problem is that it messes up your Chemical Spill because you don’t want to summon it from your hand. You can consider something like Haywire + Perfect instead, which is 7 mana (so below Grom) and it’s also not a terrible one to summon with Chemical Spill.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

260 Comments

  1. Gabriel88BR
    April 18, 2020 at 10:30 am

    vai lanรงar outro deck hoje?

  2. Gibilan
    December 21, 2019 at 12:43 pm

    Even in low ranks there are alot of meta decks

    • Gibilan
      December 21, 2019 at 12:43 pm

      The only difference is that those players don`t know how to pilote them

    • Ridanculous
      April 23, 2020 at 6:21 pm

      And sometimes they are missing 1 or 2 of the more expensive cards

  3. Stonekeep - Site Admin
    December 21, 2019 at 8:58 am

    Budget decks were just updated for Descent of Dragons meta! While some of the decks didn’t change that much, I offer two alternative builds that would need some Epics to work better – Deathrattle Rogue & Aggro Overload Shaman.

    Let me know what you think!

    Comments below this one might be outdated.

    • Ninjask2314
      December 21, 2019 at 11:42 am

      Where did you post Deathrattle rogue and Aggro overload shaman? I canโ€™t find it.

      • Stonekeep - Site Admin
        December 21, 2019 at 3:03 pm

        Click on the name of a given deck to get redirected to a full guide with mulligan, strategy etc.

        In the Rogue & Shaman guides, I’ve added those alternative builds at the bottom ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Joopiter
      February 8, 2020 at 11:41 pm

      Do you think any of Galakrond’s Awekening cards can be added to these decks?

  4. Joopiter
    October 5, 2019 at 2:19 am

    Wild cards will return soon and everyone gets copies. So will you update decks inluding these?

  5. Emtee
    September 16, 2019 at 11:16 pm

    Hey! When is this going to be updated? Iโ€™d like to make a budget deck, but I donโ€™t want to use all my dust to create one that is much weaker now… I hope you see this comment ๐Ÿ™‚ Keep up the great work!

  6. DlN0
    August 22, 2019 at 9:59 am

    The aggro paladin deck has been surprisingly successful I climbed from rank 20 to rank 10. Thanks for the decks Stonekeep. ????

    • DlN0
      August 22, 2019 at 10:00 am

      why did it turn my emoji into question marks >:(

      • Stonekeep - Site Admin
        August 22, 2019 at 3:00 pm

        What emoji did you try to put? Maybe it’s not recognized on our site or something (not sure).

        But I’m glad that you had a nice climb with the deck ๐Ÿ™‚

  7. Torekcazador
    August 16, 2019 at 1:21 pm

    Awesome work ๐Ÿ™‚ (looking forward for your disenchanting and crafting guide for the new expansion)

  8. Stonekeep - Site Admin
    August 16, 2019 at 12:39 pm

    Budget decks were just updated for Saviors of Uldum meta! I really like this batch, I think that we have some really strong options.

    Comments below this one might be outdated.

  9. Mukiwix
    August 11, 2019 at 4:32 am

    When can we expect an update? ๐Ÿ™‚

  10. Reylla
    August 10, 2019 at 9:23 pm

    Update budget deck pls ๐Ÿ™

  11. Crooked.Nose
    July 6, 2019 at 8:25 am

    Absolutely adore this site, and since finding it a few years back, I haven’t touched any other Hearthstone sites since! The degree of professionalism placed into every guide and the speed at which this site’s content is updated after huge game updates and expansions is unrivaled by any other sites out there.

    Necessary praise aside, will these budget decks need updating after the Rise Of Shadows nerfs and the new classic set cards, or have there been minimal changes to the meta and included cards?

  12. Sckylar
    April 16, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    Considering Archmage Vargoth is given to everyone for free, is he not a good option for budget token druid?

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 16, 2019 at 8:07 pm

      Yes, you’re right, and it’s discussed on the deck’s page! If you have Vargoth (and everyone who plays the game right now does), replace Cult Master with it.

      However, it’s a limited time promotion (you can only get it until July AFAIK), so it’s better to not assume that everyone has it in case someone checks out the budget guides after it runs out ๐Ÿ™‚

  13. OldManSanns
    April 16, 2019 at 10:57 am

    I have to say: crafting Whizbang is probably the smartest decision I’ve made in this game, if for no other reason than he keeps my games entertaining.

    That said, I do truly appreciate these budget deck lists–especially this new format with the strategy and upgrade/sidegrade information. I’m already seeing so many things I want to try out… Thank you all so much for doing this and for writing it so quickly.

  14. Stonekeep - Site Admin
    April 16, 2019 at 8:48 am

    Budget decks were just updated for Rise of Shadows meta! Big thanks to Martian & Roffle for doing it so quickly.

    Comments below this one might be outdated.

  15. Stonekeep - Site Admin
    April 11, 2019 at 7:04 am

    We’re currently working on the new budget decks! They should be ready some time next week.

    • DJCook55
      April 11, 2019 at 12:15 pm

      Thank you guys and gals! No rush. The new expansion has only been out for 2 days. It takes time to see where the meta will be going, and to learn how to incorporate new cards. Keep up the hard work.

  16. Crooked.Nose
    April 9, 2019 at 3:26 pm

    Hi,

    Will these decks be updated for Rise Of Shadows/Year of the Dragon?

    Thanks.

    • Crooked.Nose
      April 10, 2019 at 6:31 am

      EDIT: Please ignore my comment above.

      I completely forgot that I’d already asked this on you “Rise Of Shadows Deck Lists” article.

      Didn’t mean to spam, lol. ๐Ÿ˜›

  17. AryannaLao20
    March 27, 2019 at 7:40 pm

    Thank you for this! ๐Ÿ˜€ Murloc deck seems to be the cheapest for me.

  18. Dumbino
    January 24, 2019 at 7:04 am

    I dusted a golden legendary earlier and thought i should craft a midrange Hunter without Rexxar but there are so many viable budget decks out there, which makes me think if there is a better budget deck that suit a newbie like me…

    • Dumbino
      January 24, 2019 at 7:12 am

      P.s: i have Uther, Jaxxarus along with Bloodmage Thalnos and Harrison Jones as well.

      • Silentstorm
        January 26, 2019 at 12:52 pm

        You can go budget otk paladin but it takes some learning fun deck and you can turn it into a tier 1 deck

  19. DormantKing
    January 16, 2019 at 9:37 am

    I’m going to ask at risk of sounding like an idiot, But are the dust cost based on what you would get if you disenchanted the deck? Because none of theses decks cost anywhere near those prices to craft. And if so why mark the price like that? I don’t understand.

    • NinjaFarts
      January 27, 2019 at 10:24 am

      No the dust cost just means how much it would cost to craft every single card in the deck.

  20. Vรฉlin
    January 9, 2019 at 2:52 am

    So, the best budget decks from this list are Midrange Hunter and Zoo Warlock. And if i mean the best, i mean the best by far.

  21. Evident
    December 3, 2018 at 2:45 pm

    We’ll be working on updating these soon after the expansion is released!

    • Joopiter
      December 6, 2018 at 2:59 am

      It would be nice ๐Ÿ™‚ If you can, please include more cards replacements in each deck. Obviously if someone is forced to make budget deck, he doesn’t have all cards. Not only all legendaries and epics but also not all commons and rares.

      • Matteo
        December 6, 2018 at 6:24 am

        Budget decks can be already considered “replacements” for meta decks. If you don’t have some cards, just craft them. The very reason for budgets is that you can build one from scratch for around 1500 dust.

      • thanasis
        December 23, 2018 at 10:49 am

        if someone has some legendaries and epics put some of them to replace a common or a rare to the descriptoon of the deck

      • Aayush
        January 15, 2019 at 6:16 pm

        Can we please have multiple budget decks for each class?

    • Piotr
      December 9, 2018 at 2:28 am

      Can you add each deck bbcode ?

  22. Lester
    October 20, 2018 at 8:01 pm

    Any changes after the nerfs to Giggling Inventor???

    • Setatakahashi
      December 2, 2018 at 10:38 am

      Stonehill Defender for value generation
      Rotten Applebaum for cost/benefit taunt

  23. Kevin
    August 20, 2018 at 8:07 pm

    You put token Druid twice under deck recommendations.

  24. kalina88
    August 8, 2018 at 6:56 am

    Hello, please, when will be updated for new expansion ? Thanks a lot.

    • Evident
      August 12, 2018 at 11:01 am

      Being worked on currently!

      • kalina88
        August 18, 2018 at 12:32 pm

        Ok. Thank you. Warlock seems to be a greatest choice for new players ?

  25. Seb
    July 20, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    Hi,
    Thanks for this guide, it helps a lot !

    Dude Paladin deck is very dependent of “LightFused Stegodon” and “Lost in the Jungle” cards, that will be soon unavailable due to extension turn over.
    Would you have some tips to replace these cards ?

  26. SMOOOOORC
    July 18, 2018 at 1:11 pm

    Btw, you probably want to replace the current midranged hunter deck with the other more secret oriented deck that used Spellstone and only 7 minions. You could replace Deathstalker Rexxar with a highmane or something.

    • ZbigniewJeลผ
      August 8, 2018 at 7:11 am

      Really good idea. Your deck is much better than the version from budget list.

  27. Wheels
    June 23, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    I am sorry but I don’t know where to post regular questions so I will post this here.
    I want to build a secret mage style deck I have looked into deck formulas listed here and have not found anything within that vein so if someone can post a budget secret mage that would be awesome ps I have a little over five hundred dust saved so feel free to add some non budget cards near that amount thanks!

    • HSHSHSHSreplay
      July 5, 2018 at 2:38 pm

      Do you have any epic or legendary mage cards?
      If you look up the “non budget” tempo mage, how far off are you from this?
      What secrets do you have?
      Let me know and will make you a list.

      • Wheels
        July 10, 2018 at 7:42 pm

        Thank you (:

        In answer to your question I have written down every Mage related epic and legend I have as well as every Standard legend and epic
        I built Tempo mage once and did not like the flow of it yet I do want to play mage as I have heard she is an important class to learn.
        Anyway here is the list
        Mage Epic:
        Book of Specters x2
        Primordial glyph x2
        Arcane Keysmith x2
        Pyroblast x 2
        Counterspell x2
        Other secrets:
        Explosive Runes x2
        Frozen clone x2
        Mirror Entity x2
        Ice Barrier x2

        Mage Legends:
        Frost Lich Jaina x1
        Aluneth x1
        Archmage Arugul x1 (sorry I pulled one of these and was only able to craft one of the other two)

        Standard Epics:
        Doomsayerx2
        Nightmare Amalgramx2
        Blaze Callerx2
        Spiteful Summoner x2
        Primordial Drake x2
        Charged Devilsaur x2
        Mountain and Sea Giant x2

        Standard Legends:
        Prince Keleseth x2
        Genn Greymane x1 not to brag but he is a gold genn btw lol lucky pull
        Countess Ashmore x2
        Baku x1
        The Lich King x1
        hope this helps and thank you so much!

  28. Julien16p
    June 7, 2018 at 6:01 pm

    Hello ๐Ÿ™‚
    I crafted the Budget Elemental Mage Deck a few days ago. It is so much fun ๐Ÿ™‚
    I am a new player and haven’t got aluneth yet and no dust left. I enchanted all of my free legendaries for this deck.

    My question is at this point, if it is still worth it to collect dust for Aluneth even, if this card will leave the rotation with the new expansion coming next year. I don’t know how long it will take to collect that much dust. How much dust do you get if a legendary leaves the rotation and become a wild card?

    Thanks a lot ๐Ÿ™‚

    • TiARETiK
      June 8, 2018 at 6:16 am

      Basicly, average dust cost of a pack is one hundred, and due to quests you usually can collect 180 – 170 gold in three days. So, if you will win six to nine games, while completing the tasks, you will collect 1600 dust in 24 days. This will leave you with a really useful legendary for the next eight (Isn’t it?) month. I think, that’s worth it, at least, if you’r going to use it)
      (Btw, this sounds hard, but crafting a legendary in a month is really not so hard)

      • TiARETiK
        June 8, 2018 at 6:21 am

        (I’m not really an english speaking man, so often do either logical, or grammatical mistakes, sorry)

      • Julien16p
        June 8, 2018 at 6:47 am

        Okay, thank you very much ๐Ÿ™‚

        • GuyThatTalks
          June 19, 2018 at 2:41 pm

          As a new player, you donโ€™t want to sink dust into a legendary card. For starters, a deck can eaisilly get boring, and you might want to play something else. So while it might take only 24 days to save up for a legendary, youโ€™ll be getting NO cards in that period of time, to further expand and enhance your collection, or to make new decks. Also, this deck is not very powerful, with no meta version. Iโ€™m doubting Alunethโ€™s place in this deck. In addition, that legendary card fits in little or no decks outside of this one, and could easily faze out of the meta. So overall, crafting a legendary can totally ruin your experience, and until you get a larger collection, Iโ€™d only recommend dusting cards that you never expect to use. (Sorry for typos, I typed this quickly on a phone)

    • Bourbaki
      June 13, 2018 at 1:00 am

      Elemage is not a strong deck right now. However you can still buy aluneth for secret tempo mage that is stronger.

    • MoroAlex95
      June 22, 2018 at 8:57 am

      Don’t bother crafting aluneth,it’s not worth it,the best legendaries to craft right nowpath are probably Baku/Genn.

  29. Wheels
    May 22, 2018 at 12:31 am

    First let me say thank you so much for this guide! The decks are not only cheap to build but also very easy to pilot.
    Would you mind putting up a budget murloc deck please?

    That would be awesome

    Thank you again!

    • ArcanaXknight
      May 22, 2018 at 5:03 am

      They could do so but the deck won’t be strong enough.

      Murloc package in a budget would lack in power to finish the game.

      You would miss so much “Warleader” and “Gentle Megasore”.

  30. Greymane
    May 8, 2018 at 12:08 am

    For the priest deck would lady in white work?

    • FacelessFairy
      May 8, 2018 at 5:11 am

      it could, the only minions who would suffer is the bone dragons
      that is unless she overides the Twilight drakes (i dont know how they interact with her)

      • Nanster420
        May 9, 2018 at 12:05 pm

        the twilights will become 1/1 and still get the hand buff though so you could have a 1/7 twilight with LIW

    • James John Sanders
      May 17, 2018 at 3:45 pm

      just crafted your preist dragon deck and it worked like a charm (: I mean sure it all depends on the draw ie you can’t win them all but when this goes off it is hard to stop thanks much!

  31. Lir18
    May 5, 2018 at 8:44 am

    guys, best budget decks right now are midrange hunter, dude paladin, tempo mage (not this elemental mage), combo priest and zoolock. Combo priest is inconsistent and a very tricky deck to play.

    here is the meta tempo mage http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/witchwood-tempo-mage-deck-list-guide-standard/

    • Tike
      May 7, 2018 at 9:37 am

      Is Budget rogue a good deck to craft for, Im currently using budget mage, but i also want to use rogue from time-to-time, or is mage just a wayy better option.

  32. Sinitar
    May 3, 2018 at 6:54 am

    ะกะฟะฐะผะตั€ั‹ ัะพะฒัะตะผ ะตะฑะฐะฝัƒะปะธััŒ. ะญั‚ะพ ะฐะฝะณะปะพัะทั‹ั‡ะฝั‹ะน ัะฐะนั‚ ะฟะพ ะธะณั€ะต, ะฐะปะปะพ, ะณะพั€ะฐัˆ!

  33. Undecided
    April 25, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    Muitobom os Deck Budget , adorei .. Valeu <3 , Um abraรงo aqui do Brasil !

  34. Kottler
    April 23, 2018 at 6:21 pm

    The decks are great, good job, love the website ๐Ÿ˜€ Just a question: Could we get some tips on upgrades to these decks? Expensive cards that we might have to use in these decks. Or this doesn’t makes any sense? haha ty!

    • Macaroon
      April 24, 2018 at 9:19 pm

      Look at the meta versions of these decks (most of them have a meta version), and make substitutions based on the cards with the highest winrates.

      Examples:
      Rogue – Prince Keleseth and vilespines
      Druid – Whispering woods and branching paths – malfurion too eventually
      Mage- Jaina and blazecallers (Jaina has insane synergy with elementals)
      Priest – Shadow visions (alternatively you could build the spiteful deck with spiteful summoners and free from amber)
      Warlock- Hooked reavers, Prince keleseth, Gul’dan
      Shaman – different class is a good upgrade
      Paladin – Call to arms (insane card for that deck) and later sunkeeper tarim
      Warrior- Town criers are a good craft for that deck

      • Elzein
        April 25, 2018 at 12:12 pm

        Nice list. I would also add that although Warlock is currently very strong, it’s decks are also very expensive. If you are short on mana and are looking to upgrade a single class, I would suggest Druid, Rogue, Mage or specially Paladin instead. Priest isalso good, but it doesn’t have a tier 1 deck right now. As for Shaman and Warrior, both classes remain at the bottom and are not worth the investment if you are a FTP or budget player with low mana avaliable.

        • Ash256
          May 1, 2018 at 6:15 pm

          Lady in White dragon deck is amazing…

          • jeff
            May 3, 2018 at 9:54 pm

            Lady in White turned out to be a bad deck for many reasons, best priest deck rn is control priest with mind blast

          • Olkov
            May 17, 2018 at 1:47 am

            I have lady in white from firsts packs and I really love to see her play. For.me it’s amazing card but most of the time she doesn’t work… Of course it’s nice to throw on the table 9/9 steambot but too often she is too slow… She works as a nice additional card for deck with double heal and inner fire ( steambot cost 4 and have 9 health so it’s possible to do otk with it). I have in this deck weapon for priest and lyra as well so it sometimes works ( but most of the time lady in white is far in the deck to have any usage from her).

            What you are playing with LiW.that is so good? Maybe I’m doing something wrong?

          • LuckSack
            June 17, 2018 at 6:02 pm

            Lady in White could be good with more support but mind blast control is best right now.

  35. MartinTiz
    April 23, 2018 at 11:29 am

    Hi All im noob here. Good post! Thx! Thx!

  36. cryingHunter
    April 23, 2018 at 5:20 am

    If any new player see my comment, plz do not make the midrange hunter deck, it is not the hunter’s world.

    • Evident
      April 23, 2018 at 9:20 am

      Midrange Hunter has been a budget staple for a long time, so I’m not sure what you are talking about.

      • cryingHunter
        April 25, 2018 at 3:17 am

        I did not judge your article, it is very helpful, I made my decks based on it, the problem is not hunter, no one can form a better budget deck for hunter, but in current environment, hunter is just too weak, New player would switch to other class after he beyond the newbie level.

        Anyway, these decks are not expensive, and play different class would be more interesting and helpful.

    • Pucciboi
      April 23, 2018 at 11:11 am

      i got rank 15 for the first time with a slightly upgraded midrange hunter. I used a 4k dust elemental mage and tried different variations of mage but i was hardstuck rank 16. 1.2 k dust midrange hunter got me rank 15

  37. Paladin_Fuj
    April 22, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    Every dude paladin deck user should uninstall heartstone so the normal people can enjoy it.

    • CD001
      April 23, 2018 at 4:24 am

      Dude Paladin has been a thing since forever – they’ve just swapped Quartermaster for Tarim, Level Up and/or Lightfused Stegadon; it’s always been a “normal” HS archetype – it’s just a bit stronger now than it has been for a long time.

      It’s still beatable mind; I have few problems with it when running Control Warlock – especially with Despicable Dreadlord. Taunt-heavy decks generally do well too.

    • Olkov
      May 17, 2018 at 7:22 am

      And who are you to judge whet other people should play? If you don’t like playing this deck than don’t. I can say the same about cubelock, about face Hunter, face mage, quest rogue or any other deck if I don’t like them. If you are playing ranked than you use every opportunity to take down your opponent. If you don’t like that style you can always play normal and give up if you face ‘cancer’ deck. But don’t tell other people why should they play. They will play with the deck that’s give them fun and satisfaction. That why hearstone was made , to give fun (and of course money to blizzard).

    • Ben White
      May 19, 2018 at 2:28 am

      Yeah and cube locks they make the games not even fun and impossible to rank up

  38. Quaeritate
    April 21, 2018 at 2:03 am

    These are great. Would be nice to have some budget odd and even decks (if they exist). Budget odd decks seem to be quite good, and baku is a good legendary for budget players.

    • Elzein
      April 25, 2018 at 12:17 pm

      If you own Baku, I belive odd Paladin is the cheapest deck. Odd hunter can be good too, yet weaker than Paladin and you may need Leeroy Jenkins.

  39. PoopyPants
    April 20, 2018 at 11:32 pm

    Thank you so much for this list. It helps a lot.

  40. Ghnan
    April 19, 2018 at 10:54 pm

    I LOVE THIS BUDGET DECK SECTION! Thank you so much for writing this up and caring for us, F2P players. Please keep this section up-to-date as the meta changes and perhaps provide a 2nd/3rd alternative for each class whenever possible. Keep up the good work!

  41. Chad
    April 16, 2018 at 3:32 am

    Just a heads up: Elemental Mage is still listed with the Secret Mage deck list.

  42. Dan
    April 14, 2018 at 6:21 am

    Can we get some updates please?

    • Evident
      April 14, 2018 at 6:03 pm

      We’ve updated four decks, we still need time to finish the rest.

      • Chad
        April 16, 2018 at 3:31 am

        You guys are doing great! Thanks for the work you do in updating, on top of playing yourselves!

  43. thedoctorproctor
    March 6, 2018 at 9:30 pm

    Can we please get updates on these decks, pirates are almost non existent with patches nerf yet almost all these decks contain Golakka. It was nice to see them get rid of the creeper after nerf but golakka is somehow still in these decks and needs to be removed as well.

    • Meganium
      March 9, 2018 at 11:57 pm

      Yeah, i’d also love to see all of these decks get slightly adjusted and maybe even a new deck or two.

    • Joopiter
      March 10, 2018 at 1:27 pm

      I’ve asked for it also few weeks ago, but with no response. I assume that this will be updated after next patch.

  44. Joopiter
    February 25, 2018 at 11:13 am

    Can we get some update for post-nerf decks?

  45. Mellony
    February 21, 2018 at 7:10 am

    Which of these decks is the strongest? Please answer

    • Evident
      February 21, 2018 at 10:43 am

      Secret Mage and Zoo I would say.

      • TheCheeser
        February 25, 2018 at 1:05 pm

        I disagree, though secret mage is very strong in ladder indeed this version doesn’t run alluneth (the 6 mana mage weapon) which really hurts the deck.
        In my opinion inner fire priest is the best closely followed by zoo warlock and midrange hunter. After that mage and druid and the other decks are pretty trash.

        • Josse
          March 5, 2018 at 10:21 am

          Inner fire without Shadow Visions I really disagree… Zoo is strong, surely if you manage to put in Keleseth and maybe Gul’Dan.

          Elemental mage (not secret tempo, check ‘other budget options’) with Jaina and Baron Geddon (?) also works really well for me.

  46. BrokenTeapot_
    February 13, 2018 at 5:37 am

    I already have the full Budget Midrange Hunter deck and I am loving it, great guide! But, Is it worth crafting Secret Mage now or should I wait until April 2018 for the rotations and then spend my dust on updated budget decks? I suppose what Iโ€™m asking is, will these deck lists be updated very soon after the rotation or will they remain outdated until a few weeks after the rotation, if Iโ€™m making any sense? Thanks for any helpful repsonses.

    • BrokenTeapot_
      February 13, 2018 at 5:45 am

      Whoops, forgot to ask if these lists will be updated to address the nerfs to Patches and Creeper etc. Sorry for the unintentional spam, just really interested to hear from site admins and better players! ๐Ÿ™‚

    • TheCheeser
      February 25, 2018 at 1:09 pm

      Mage won’t be viable after the rotations I don’t think, except if blizzard make a few new cards that support it. If you do have the dust or most of the cards you could craft it but I wouldn’t recommend this version as it doesn’t run the weapon which hard carries quite a few games.

  47. Toaster
    January 31, 2018 at 11:20 am

    Cuse I dont have raza it’s realy bad but is it any deck I can came to rank 10-5 with?? Now I dont use ut at all, I’m playing the Budget jade deck

  48. Toaster
    January 31, 2018 at 10:57 am

    I got shadowreaper anduin as free deth night.Is it any good Budget deck with him?

    • Titan2409
      February 20, 2018 at 9:05 am

      Uh u can play with a budget dragon-filled deck

  49. Kwabat
    January 26, 2018 at 5:52 am

    Hi there,
    built Midrange Hunter and im quite happy with the Deck. Recently crafted 2 Corridor Creepers as you recommended. Is cutting Hounds really the way to go? Quite liked the Synergy with huner’s Mark and helped to turn some lost games into wins. I felt like cutting the Hyena… good idea or is it definetly Hounds? And why is it Hounds? ๐Ÿ˜›

    • MasterTot
      January 26, 2018 at 1:52 pm

      Yeah I would also consider replacing hyena, I also tried it and it is very difficult to make it work. Hounds is much better right now.

  50. Maximus31
    January 19, 2018 at 2:03 pm

    If you do end wanting to rank with the mage i made it to rank 11 in about 3 days. I played this game for a few months a few years ago and with that knowledge and this deck its been enjoyable experience. Thanks i hope to push to rank 5 by the end of month. I hope itโ€™s possible