Sheng’s Budget TGT Aggro Paladin

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 Warlock 
• 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.

If you’re new to Hearthstone, or just have a limited collection of cards—I feel your pain. It is often difficult to find cheap but viable decks that are competitive on the Hearthstone ladder.

When I first started playing Hearthstone, I would often go online to lookup the most popular decks played at Legend rank, and find that my limited card collection would not build them. While it was sometimes possible to substitute less important cards, there would often not be cheap substitutions for a crucial Epic or Legendary that completed a deck.

Given this dilemma, I’ve set out to help those of you with a limited collection by providing budget ladder-viable decks for each class.

Requirements

1. Reach Level 10 to unlock all of the Basic cards for this class.
2. Complete the Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain expansions.
3. Have 1300 dust available for crafting.

Design Principles

Many readers have requested that I update my Budget deck series to include cards from The Grand Tournament. I have to apologize for the delay in getting these written, as I wanted to spend as much time as possible play-testing and tuning these.

Unlike last time, I didn’t set a particular dust limit to any of my decks, but rather limited myself to just cards from the single player adventures (Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain at the time this was written), and cards from the Basic, Common, and Rare cardsets. Many of these decks mirror the top decks played at the Legend level, with substitutions for some of the more expensive Epics and Legendaries. At the end of this guide, there is an additional section that provides substitutions for cards to make this deck even stronger.

Again, the overall goal is to provide a set of budget decks for newer players that can be viable to at least Rank 10, and even below.

Playstyle

Overview

• Budget TGT Aggro Paladin seeks to claim the board early and never put the foot off the gas. The goal of the deck is to play small cost-efficient minions that benefit from each other and to overwhelm your opponent before they have answers.
• In the early game, you want to establish a board quickly. Unlike Face Hunter, the goal isn’t to do damage as quickly as possible, but rather to control and dominate the board throughout the course of the game.
• Try to empty your hand before playing divine-favor to maximize the amount of cards you’ll be able to draw.
• Utilize equality and muster-for-battle or ironbeak-owl to deal or bypass your opponent’s bigger threats and taunts.

Minions – 17

2x abusive-sergeant

• Abusive Sergeant’s primary purpose to allow your smaller minions to trade up against more expensive minions on your opponent’s board. You almost never want to play him onto a board without a target to use his Battlecry on.

2x argent-squire

• A cheap but effective card that sticks on the board. Primarily her purpose is to contest the board early against other aggro decks to pop Divine Shields or to be buffed by spells. She can become really effective if hit by a blessing-of-kings as the Divine Shield, when unbroken, makes her really difficult to deal with.

2x leper-gnome

• A great little minion to help us establish control of the board early. His Deathrattle is beneficial to us, as our goal after establishing an early board is to aggressively charge our opponent’s face.

2x southsea-deckhand

• When played with a weapon on the board, Southsea Deckhand can be really effective. He’ll let you trade with a larger minion or help you get that extra bit of damage for lethal. He’s not really a card you want to keep in your opening hand, as there are better 1 mana minions when you can’t play him with charge.

2x ironbeak-owl

• Primarly used as a way of bypassing taunts so we can deal direct damage to our opponent in the mid to late game.

2x knife-juggler

• Knife Juggler is mana efficient and synergizes extremely well with muster-for-battle and minions who have been affected by equality.

2x shielded-minibot

• While our deck doesn’t have any mech synergy, Shielded Minibot is just too valuable to not include. When buffed, this little guy can trade up against many larger minions and still survive.

1x arcane-golem

• Provides extra burst for lethal. You generally don’t want to play him on turn 3 unless you have no other viable plays, as the extra mana crystal for your opponent can be huge. We run only a single copy as he’s situational and should be used to finish opponents off.

2x argent-horserider — New!

• A great new minion from the TGT cardset. Synergizes well with our buff spells and will stick around after a trade. This replaces wolfrider in our previous budget Aggro Paladin deck.

Spells – 11

2x blessing-of-might

• Serves both as reach and removal. Works well with minions with Divine Shield as it’ll allow a smaller minion to trade twice.

1x equality

• Provides a reset button for us when the board becomes too difficult for us to deal with, or when we just can’t ignore our opponent’s minions. Synergizes extremely well with our small 1/1 tokens.

2x divine-favor

• An extremely important card for refueling our hand after aggressively populating the board early on.

2x muster-for-battle

• The primary card on which our deck is built around. Muster for Battle is what enables us to gain value from knife-juggler, equality, and frostwolf-warlord in many situations.

2x blessing-of-kings

• A situational card, but oftentimes useful for allowing a smaller minion to trade up, or to provide 5 points of reach for lethal.

1x consecration

• Deals direct damage and will often allow you to clear the board when combined with the damage from your smaller minions. Serves as a full board-clear when combined with equality.

1x hammer-of-wrath

• Another situational card. The Hammer of Wrath is an extra bit of reach that can also give us a bit of tempo later in the game if we’re able to play the card it draws us.

Weapons – 2

2x truesilver-champion

• One of the best weapons in the game. Truesilver Champion allows us to do 8 points of damage with 4 mana, and heals us at the same time. Extremely useful for controlling the board or for providing the damage needed to kill our opponent later in the game.

Mulligan Guide

In general, you want to mulligan to setup your first three or four turns. Please note that there is a distinction between going first and going second in Hearthstone, and this should factor into your mulligan choices.

When going first, your advantage is the ability to play first. In addition, you gain mana crystals before your opponent. To take advantage of this, you want to be aggressive in your mulligan to put minions on the board.

When going second, your advantage is mainly the-coin, which gives you tempo over your opponent for a single turn, and also an extra card. Depending on the nature of your deck, whether it’s Aggro, Midrange, or Control, you’ll be looking for different things.

• When playing an aggro deck, you’ll be looking for the same cards going second as you would going first. The objective is to quickly populate the board and bring down your opponent’s life total.
• When playing a midrange deck, you’ll also be looking to get onto the board early, with the caveat that you can keep a single copy of a situational minion or spell that you think may be useful to counter an opponent. This spell might be something like a kezan-mystic to counter classes with Secrets or removal like frostbolt.
• When playing a control deck, you’re looking to save the coin until much later in the game, generally when you can bring out a large late-game threat earlier than usual.

While I won’t make an exhaustive list, these are some of the cards you should consider keeping in your opening hand when playing this deck.

Minions

• 1 Mana: argent-squire, leper-gnome
• 2 Mana: knife-juggler, shielded-minibot

Gameplay Video

Upgrades

Here are a few simple substitutions that will make this budget deck even stronger.

• 1x consecration ? 1x coghammer

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my guide to Budget TGT Aggro Paladin. For more advanced Paladin decks that aren’t constrained by a limited dust budget, check out the Paladin meta decks on our sidebar. As always, I’d be happy to answer questions from you in the comments section.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out the New Players section, other Beginner and Budget Decks, and our most popular section – Monthly Top Meta Decks.

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!

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