Editor’s Note: With the new Standard Format in 2016 for Hearthstone, we highly recommend going for cards in the Classic set and Whispers of the Old Gods (Standard Format). Here are budget guides, also from Sheng, to get you started!
- Budget Standard Standard C’Thun Druid
- Budget Standard Midrange Hunter
- Budget Standard C’Thun Mage
- Budget Standard  Aggro Paladin
- Budget Standard C’Thun Priest
- Budget Standard C’Thun Rogue
- Budget Standard Midrange Shaman
- Budget Standard Zoo WarlockÂ
- Budget Standard Combo Warrior
Introduction
Greetings, I’m Sheng, a Legend rank constructed and 7.5 win-average arena player. I run HearthstoneCoaching.com where our coaches have helped many students achieve the same.
Whether you’re a newer player, or an experienced one who just wants to find the most efficient way to spend your cash or in-game gold, you can never go wrong by investing in Hearthstone’s single player expansions. Both The Curse of Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain have provide unique and useful cards that cannot be unlocked anywhere else.
My Blackrock Mountain Hearthstone Deck are a new series of guides where I try to construct the most  effective Hearthstone decks I can for each class, with only one contraint — that I only use cards from the Basic, Naxxramas, and Blackrock Mountain card sets.
These 0 dust decks are meant to help newer players kickstart their Hearthstone journey, by providing unique and viable decks that can be used against friends and foe on casual or ladder (though you may want to check out the upgrade section at the end of each guide to get further on the ladder).
Deck Playstyle
Thanks to imp-gang-boss, Blackrock Mountain Midrange Warlock actually has a pretty decent early game. We’ve gone away from the gimmick of utilizing ogre-magi for the small spell-power bonus. Instead this deck focuses more on having strong minions at all points in the game, with the efficient removal spells to protect them.
Careful planning is necessary to pilot this deck correctly, as the order in which you play your cards like soulfire and hellfire are critical.
Minions – 22
2x zombie-chow
- The Zombie Chow is strictly an early game minion used to pressure your opponent’s board early. The goal of casting a Zombie Chow onto the board early is to trade with your opponent’s more expensive minions before its deathrattle becomes a liability. There’s very little downside to killing off your own Zombie Chow when your opponent is close to full health, but playing him later in the game might just put your opponent out of reach if he has a way to deal with it.
2x acidic-swamp-ooze
- The Ooze is a great little card that has an incredible battlecry against more than half the classes in the game (Hunter, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior). His 3/2 body for 2 mana passes the Vanilla Test, and there’s no downside to playing him even if the battlecry doesn’t destroy a weapon.
2x haunted-creeper
- This spider is our counter to aggressive decks that like to drop multitudes of 1 health minions. He’s a mini harvest-golem that spawns two 1/1 tokens instead of a single 2/1 token. The spawned tokens become nice targets for buffs.
2x imp-gang-boss
- Whoo! Probably the best card in our deck. The imp-gang-boss passes the Vanilla Test and is super annoying. He’ll spawn one of more minions for you before he dies, and with the plethora of removal spells in our deck, you’ll be able to use your tokens to take down much better and more expensive minions.
2x shattered-sun-cleric
- 3 mana for 3/2 isn’t mana efficient, but the battlecry more than makes up for it. The downside is that if you don’t have a minion on the board, this card suffers.
- The ideal scenario is to play this on the same turn a minion you control can trade with something equal in value and survive, or can trade up to kill something more expensive.
2x chillwind-yeti
- The Yeti is the benchmark on which all other 4 mana minions are compared. Not only does he pass the Vanilla Test with flying colors, he trades favorably with most other 2, 3, and 4 mana minions. The Yeti has no downsides and is a welcome sight whether you’re behind or ahead in the game.
1x hungry-dragon
- An additional minion at the 4 slot. Situationally good, so we only play one copy of him. The 1 mana minion spawned can oftentimes have 1 health, which is great if you have a mortal-coil and can cast it on the same turn.
2x senjin-shieldmasta
- Taz’dingo! The Sen’jin Shieldmasta trades one point of attack in exchange for taunt, but it’s generally a fair trade. While a Sen’jin won’t 1 hit kill a 4/4 or 3/4 minion, he’ll be able to protect your lower health minions from dying to favorable trades from your opponent, and can be the key to slowing down the game against aggressive rush-down decks.
1x loatheb
- Loatheb is an amazing card… when played correctly. 5 mana for a 5/5 is fair, but it’s Loatheb’s ability to shutdown opponent’s spells that makes him so valuable. Play Loatheb on turn 6 before a mage can cast flamestrike on turn 7 and he’ll win you the game.
2x sludge-belcher
- If you thought the senjin-shieldmasta was good, well just wait until you see his bigger brother, the Sludge Belcher. Sludge Belcher is an extremely annoying card to deal with, because when he dies, he leaves behind a smaller taunt. This effectively shuts down very aggressive decks, that are generally forced to use silence to get around him. Another benefit to the Sludge Belcher’s deathrattle is his synergy with kelthuzad. Good luck getting past that wall of taunts when both are on the board at the same time!
2x dread-infernal
- His stats are worse than boulderfist-ogre, and his battlecry can sometimes backfire against us, but thankfully we can choose when to play him.
- He can be used as a mini-board clear. Just make sure you trade in your tokens into your opponent’s minions before playing dread-infernal.
1x emperor-thaurissan
- While at first glance the Emperor seems overpowered, he’s only truly valuable in decks that have relatively large hand sizes to allow him to reduce the cost of multiple cards on the same turn. When you can tuck him behind a taunt or two, he’s almost impossible to get to and can seriously snowball games for you. The weakness to the Emperor is in situations where you don’t have many cards in your hand and don’t have a board to protect him with, so play him wisely.
1x kelthuzad
- Kel’Thuzad is probably the most win condition in our deck. If you have any semblance of a board going into turn 8, he has a good chance of winning the game for you. His value only goes up when you have deathrattle minions on the board that spawn more minions.
Spells – 8
2x mortal-coil
- A situational card made better by haunted-creeper and imp-gang-boss. Oftentimes those little 1/1 tokens can bring down minions to exactly 1 health so mortal-coil can cycle you a card.
2x soulfire
- While not as good as it used to be (Soulfire used to cost 0 mana), Soulfire can still bring a tremendous amount of tempo swing, and can help you finish games.
- It’s best to see if you can empty your hand first before playing soulfire, as it won’t cost you an additional card.
2x shadow-bolt
- Playing this early hurts your tempo, as on turn 4, playing this means you most likely won’t be playing anything else, but late in the game you can play shadow-bolt to remove a minion and play something else as well, which is great.
2x hellfire
- A double-edged sword. Play this card to clear your opponent’s board. As long as your life total is high enough, you can also use this to lethal your opponent. Just take into the account the damage it’ll do to you and your board first before you play it.
Blackrock Mountain Improvements
imp-gang-boss- A significant improvement over shade-of-naxxramas, Imp Gang Boss doesn’t have any downsides and will usually spawn you a few very useful tokens before he dies.
- The Hungry Dragon is a bit of a win-more card, in that if you already have control of the board, he’s a really good play, as you’ll have the means to deal with whatever he spawns. He’s dangerous to play when you’re behind and have nothing on the board against aggro decks, because they can often ignore your Dragon and just push for lethal. Overall, one copy in our deck isn’t bad, and mortal-coil will sometimes be able to kill the 2/1s spawned from the battlecry.
- Warlock’s Life Tap ability makes this card insanely valuable, and almost guarantees that you’ll be able to gain value from his passive.
Mulligan Guide
In general, you want to mulligan so that you can put out minions on your first three turns. If you’re going second, feel free to keep a single 4 mana minion so that you can coin it out on turn 3. Coining out a minion on turn 3 is actually a significant tempo boost, as a card like chillwind-yeti can be used to trade against at least two lower cost minions.
Cards to Keep
- 1 Mana: zombie-chow
- 2 Mana:Â acidic-swamp-ooze, haunted-creeper
- 3 Mana: imp-gang-boss, shattered-sun-cleric
Remember, you want to plan out your first three turns with your opening hand, so if you already have a 1 mana and 2 mana minion, you should mulligan away your remaining card or two to dig for a play on turn 3.
Upgrades
Instead of making an upgrade list, I’d recommend you check out Spark’s guide on building a cheap and efficient Warlock Zoo deck.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the guide to our Blackrock Mountain Midrange Warlock deck. As always I’d be happy to answer questions from you in the comments section. 🙂
Coaching Lessons
If you’re interested in reaching Legend rank, or earning unlimited gold from arena, my team at HearthstoneCoaching.com would love to help! We’ve provided over a thousand hours of excellent coaching to students around the world. 
Want to Become Better at Other Games?
I also run RankOneCoaching.com, where our top coaches will develop a personal plan for you to achieve your dreams in other games. Personal lessons are an in-depth experience and most students improve significantly after just one full session!
Published: May 26, 2015 08:02 am