Sheng’s Budget TGT Tempo Rogue

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

Budget TGT Tempo Rogue’s goal is to control the pace of the game by dominating the early game with cheap spells and minions with battlecries that affect the board. In the late game, spells like eviscerate provide reach to finish the game.

Minions – 19

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 or battlecries from minions like dark-iron-dwarf.

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 knife-juggler

• Knife Juggler is a mana-efficient minion that synergizes well with our numerous deathrattle minions.

2x harvest-golem

• Harvest Golem works well as an option to play on turn 3 when we don’t have a card to combo with to enable si7-agent. Also a terrific target for dark-iron-dwarf as Harvest Golem will spawn a 2/1 when he dies.

2x si7-agent

• SI7-Agent is the best 3 mana minion for Rogue. You’ll generally want to save him for a turn when you can pay a cheap spell or minion to combo him with. If you start with the-coin, you can play him out on turn 2 to kill an opponent’s 3/2 for an early tempo lead.

2x dark-iron-dwarf

• The Dark Iron Dwarf used to be a top-tier 4 mana minion, but has recently been overshadowed by class cards at the 4 mana slot for many decks. He synergizes extremely well with the many deathrattle minions in our deck.

1x defender-of-argus

• Gives our deck another option at 4 mana slot. While our deck doesn’t plan on being behind on the board, sometimes we’ll need a taunt or two to stay alive against very aggressive decks with charge minions. Since this minion is situational, we only play one copy.

2x piloted-shredder

• An incredibly sticky minion whose purpose is to trade multiple times with our opponent’s minions. Positioning is an especially important consideration when playing with and against the Shredder as it’s possible for cards like dire-wolf-alpha and flametongue-totem to be spawned where the Shredder dies.
• Unless you’re playing around a Hunter’s explosive-shot or a Rogue’s betrayal, I recommend playing the Piloted Shredder in the middle of your board to benefit from the small chance you’ll spawn something that will buff your other minions adjacent to it

2x azure-drake

• The Azure Drake provides us with both Card Draw and a Spell Power bonus, both of which are incredibly useful for our deck.

1x loatheb

• A mana-efficient minion that allows us to shut down our opponent’s spells the next turn. You generally want to play Loatheb when you’re a turn before lethal, or to shut down a board clear spell on the following turn.

1x argent-commander

• Argent Commander provides our deck a bit of extra burst to reach lethal or to trade with something on our opponent’s board and survive.

Spells – 10

2x backstab

• Amazing tempo card. Can often kill a 2 mana minion by itself.

2x deadly-poison

• Allows our hero power to be a 3 damage dagger. Extremely useful for contesting the board or dealing damage to your opponent for lethal.

1x blade-flurry

• A situational board-clear that’s affected by Spell Power. If you have azure-drake on the board, it’ll do an additional point of damage to all enemies. Quite useful for clearing a board full of Patrons, or for a bit of extra reach for lethal.

2x eviscerate

• While the Combo can sometimes be tricky to pull off, 4 damage for 2 mana is extremely efficient, and can provide the reach to kill off more expensive minions or to kill your opponent outright.

1x sap

• Because this card is fairly situational, we only run one copy. Its cheap casting cost means you can play Sap and a few other minions on the same turn. I keep this card in my starting hand against Druid to bounce back big taunts.

1x fan-of-knives

• Our tool against decks that like to play many 1 health minions (Hunter, Zoo Warlock, Aggro Paladin). Substitutes for blade-flurry in more expensive Rogue decks.

1x sprint

• Refills your hand to give you tempo in future turns in the late game. We only run 1 copy due to its high casting cost.

Weapons – 1

1x assassins-blade

• A great card that will win you games by itself. Only play one copy because of its high durability. Having two in your hand at once isn’t an ideal situation. Also a great target for blade-flurry or deadly-poison.

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
• 2 Mana: haunted-creeper, knife-juggler
• 3 Mana: si7-agent (with backstab or the-coin), harvest-golem

Spells

• 0 Mana: backstab
• 1 Mana: deadly-poison

Gameplay Video

Upgrades

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

• 1x argent-commander ? 1x dr-boom

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my guide to Budget TGT Tempo Rogue. For more advanced Rogue decks that aren’t constrained by a limited dust budget, check out the Rogue 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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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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