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
- Reach Level 10 to unlock all of the Basic cards for this class.
- Complete the Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain expansions.
- 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
- With the nerf of Patron Warrior, readers have asked me to write a guide on another viable Warrior deck that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of dust to craft.
- This deck is based on Tincho’s Mech Warrior. Tincho was able to reach Rank 2 Legend with it during Season 18.
- The goal of Mech Warrior is to get onto the board early, and immediately pressure an opponent’s life total. It plays very similar to Face Hunter, in that you won’t be doing very much trading on the board unless you’re forced to.
- At almost all points in the game, you should be thinking about how to maximize your damage over the remainder of the game.
- Cards like heroic-strike can be saved until you reach 12 health or below. Most players who haven’t encountered this deck before won’t expect it, so you can bait them into bringing you to a lower life total to deal an additional 2 damage.
- This deck’s primary weakness is against decks that run many taunts. A deck like Dragon Priest with a good opening curve can really shut us down if they can play taunt after taunt. In addition, a deck like Mech Mage with snowchugger and annoy-o-tron can really slow us down as well.
- Managing your weapons is pretty key to playing this deck successfully. You need to plan ahead so you won’t be stuck with multiple weapons in your hand at the same time. This means in your mulligan, you should almost always throw away your weapons, unless it’s fiery-war-axe.
Minions – 20
2x cogmaster
- A “cog” in every Mech deck. He’s a strong turn 1 play into turn 2 mechwarper or annoy-o-tron. You’ll generally want to trade him away against your opponent’s 3/2 minion if it can protect your mechwarper.
2x warbot
- While his stats aren’t very impressive, Warbot is great if you can play him for free from Mechwarper. In addition, he’s a cheap way to gain value from clockwork-knight, tinkertown-technician, and screwjank-clunker.
- The most common way to enrage Warbot is from the deathrattle from your deaths-bite, or to kill off Paladin tokens in that matchup.
2x annoy-o-tron
- While its stats don’t seem very impressive, Annoy-o-Tron is key to protecting your more important early minions like mechwarper. He becomes a formidable taunt if he’s targeted by screwjank-clunker‘s battlecry.
2x mechwarper
- Perhaps the most important minion in our deck, Mechwarper accelerates our ability to put minions on the board. A common play is to Mechwarper on turn 2 and coin out another 2 mana Mech.
2x spider-tank
- A strong play on turn 3 or turn 2 after coining out Mechwarper on turn 1. His stats are mana efficient for 3 mana, and even better if you can play him for 2 mana or less.
1x tinkertown-technician
- Tinkertown Technician is a bit situational, but with the high number of Mechs in our deck there’s a high chance he’ll become a 4/4 while giving you a Spare Part.
2x korkron-elite
- Compared to cards like bluegill-warrior and wolfrider, Korkron Elite gives you much more value for 4 mana than you would expect. He’s durable enough to survive 1 damage whirlwind effects and cards like backstab. This is often even health to let him swing for 8 damage over two turns.
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.
2x screwjank-clunker
- While his base stats aren’t impressive for 4 mana, he’ll give you 4/7 worth of stats for 4 mana if you can manage to buff a Mech with his battlecry.
1x spellbreaker
- Our sole silence in our deck to deal with taunts like sludge-belcher. Because he’s a situational card, we only play one copy as we don’t want him to clog our hand. I prefer playing Spellbreaker over ironbeak-owl for the bigger body.
- This is particularly important in our deck because we have no further card draw, and every card we play needs to be a threat.
2x clockwork-knight
- A strong play on turn 5. Reasonable stats and has a good chance to buff one of our minions for an additional +1/+1.
Spells – 4
2x heroic-strike
- 4 damage for 2 mana. Whenever you have a spare 2 mana and haven’t used your weapon yet, it’s a good play to deal additional damage to your opponent.
2x mortal-strike
- While 4 damage for 4 mana doesn’t seem that impressive, Mortal Strike provides direct damage when your opponent has taunts you can’t bypass.
- You’ll generally want to save this spell for lethal damage later in the game when you might be able to deal 6 damage when you have 12 or less health.
Weapons – 6
2x fiery-war-axe
- Provides you control of the board early or 6 points of reach later in the game. A staple weapon in every Warrior deck.
2x deaths-bite
- While an essential card in many Warrior decks for its deathrattle, Death’s Bite is primarily 8 points of damage over 2 turns for us. It’s also useful in the Paladin matchup to deal with a board of 1/1 tokens.
- Lastly, there’s a fringe possibility to use it to enrage warbot.
2x arcanite-reaper
- One of our deck’s primary finishers. In many cases it’s a 5 mana pyroblast, with its damage split over two turns.
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: cogmaster, warbot
- 2 Mana: mechwarper
Weapons
- 2 Mana: fiery-war-axe
Gameplay Video
Upgrades
Here are a few simple substitutions that will make this budget deck even stronger.
- 1x spellbreaker ? 1x fel-reaver
- 1x clockwork-knight ? 1x fel-reaver
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my guide to Budget TGT Mech Warrior. For more advanced Warrior decks that aren’t constrained by a limited dust budget, check out the Warrior 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. 
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