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 students around the world reach many of these same achievements.
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 to play on the Hearthstone ladder. Given this dilemma, I’ve set out to help those of you with a limited collection by creating budget decks for each class.
Requirements
- Reach Level 10 to unlock all of the Basic cards for this class.
- Complete the Naxxramas, Blackrock Mountain, and League of Explorers expansions.
- Have 1120 Dust for crafting cards.
Deck Playstyle
- 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.
Minions – 20
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.
1x sir-finley-mrrgglton — New!
- While Sir Finley might not seem like much. 1 mana for a 1/3 is mana efficient and can trade against 2/1s and 2/2 quite effectively. However, this isn’t the reason why we include him into our deck. Primarily, Sir Finley is used to provide us with a more tempo-oriented or aggressive Hero Power, which we can use to our advantage. With more aggressive decks, selecting a Hero Power like Hunter’s Steady Shot can win us games on its own.
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.
1x 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.
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.
2x argent-horserider
- 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.
2x keeper-of-uldaman — New!
- Keeper of Uldaman’s battlecry is extremely flexible, and can turn one of our 1/1 minions into a 3/3 or turn our opponent’s win condition into a 3/3 that we can kill or safely ignore.
2x piloted-shredder
- The best 4 mana neutral minion in the game. He provides incredible value due to his deathrattle that summons a random 2 mana minion. You’ll generally want to play the Piloted Shredder in between two of your other minions if you can, as there’s a possibility of spawning flametongue-totem or dire-wolf-alpha.
Spells – 8
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.
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.
2x consecration
- Deals direct damage and will often allow you to clear the board when combined with the damage from your smaller minions.
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. In general, your goal with this deck is to get onto the board as soon as possible. It’s important to dig for an early 1 or 2 mana minion to play so you can begin to pressure your opponent’s life total.
Minions
- 1 Mana: argent-squire, leper-gnome, sir-finley-mrrgglton
- 2 Mana: haunted-creeper, knife-juggler, shielded-minibot
- 3 Mana: argent-horserider
Spells
- 3 Mana: muster-for-battle
Gameplay Video
Upgrades
Here are some substitutions that will improve this budget deck. If you’re looking to craft cards to play this class, it’s best to start with the “Key Substitutions” first before working your way to the “Nice-to-Have” Substitutions. Unless stated otherwise, you can substitute a single copy of an upgrade card instead of two if you don’t have both.
Key Substitutions
1x truesilver-champion ? 1x coghammer
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this guide! If you have questions, feel free to use the comment sections below. Our team at HearthstonePlayers would be happy to answer them.
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. 
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