Image: Blizzard via HGG / Jeffrey Hsu
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Reviewed by Jeffrey Hsu
While there’s a lot to love about Hearthstone, one of its less great aspects is how expensive it can be to put together a deck. Some cards just cost a staggering amount of dust to craft, and it can be hard to put together a coherent deck without certain ones. Luckily, there are cheaper options out there, and today, we’re going over the best budget rogue deck in Hearthstone to climb the Standard and Wild ladders.
Best Budget Rogue Decks in Hearthstone
Before we dive into the decks, we do want to give one word of warning. Anyone who has read my previous guides will know I’m a control player at heart. However, control decks are almost always going to be more expensive to build, as you tend to need multiple legendary and epic cards to function.
Conversely, aggro decks are usually the cheapest to build because they mainly rely on low-mana cards, which are generally cheaper to craft. Plus, you typically don’t need as many legendary and epic cards. As such, our recommended budget rogue decks will lean more toward the aggro side, or at the very least, toward the low-cost tempo side.
Weapon Rogue Deck (Standard Format)
Let’s kick things off with our budget rogue deck for Standard Hearthstone. This is a rogue brew that got a nice update in the TITANS expansion.
Deck Code: AAECAaIHAA+migSSnwT3nwSKyQSY2wSa2wT13QTXowXTsgXawwW4xQXSzgW/9wW9ngbWngYA
Deck List:
- x2 Preparation.
- x2 Air Guitarist.
- x2 Deadly Poison.
- x2 Filletfighter.
- x2 Gear Shift.
- x2 Jolly Roger.
- x2 Eviscerate.
- x2 Fogsail Freebooter.
- x2 Harmonic Hip Hop.
- x2 Instrument Tech.
- x2 Serrated Bone Spike.
- x2 Cutlass Courier.
- x2 Mic Drop.
- x2 Swordfish.
- x2 Dread Corsair.
One thing to immediately note about this weapon rogue deck is that it doesn’t have any legendary or epic cards in its list. In other words, this deck is the epitome of budget. Of course that begs the question – how good is this deck? Quite good.
The strategy behind this deck is a simple one. You play weapons, hit your opponent with said weapons, profit off playing weapons, and then you hit your opponent with the cards that profit off of playing weapons. All while drawing cards, and who doesn’t love some card draw?
Swordfish Value
The deck only runs one actual weapon (Swordfish), but it’s a hell of a weapon. This 2/3 weapon for 3-mana comes with a Battlecry: Dredge. If the dredged card is a pirate, both it and Swordfish get +2 attack. That’s some stupid good value.
But if you don’t draw Swordfish, don’t worry. We’re a rogue; we can always supply our own weapon for 2-mana to get the ball rolling. Even our little 1/2 dagger can rack up some damage with Deadly Poison, Harmonic Hip Hop, and Mic Drop buffing our attack.
That being said, we still want to draw Swordfish sooner than later. We run Instrument Tech to double our chances of drawing an early Swordfish, as there’s only one target for its battlecry to draw. With all of these buffs, we can drop free Dread Corsairs with relative ease and gain some very nice tempo.
Immediate Board Impact
Our weapons are strong, but what really puts this deck over the edge is its ability to immediately impact the board state.
Filletfighter is a 3/1 threat we can drop on turn 1 that will either hit face or remove an early enemy threat. Fogsail Freebooter will deal two damage as a battlecry if we have a weapon equipped. Our weapons of course can hit face immediately, and we run Eviscerate for good measure as a finisher.
This means it can be quite hard for our opponents to stop us, as much of our damage is direct damage that can get around things like taunt. We also don’t have to wait a turn and give the opponent a chance to respond.
Eviscerate and Serrated Bone Spike also help us deal with early taunt minions to ensure our damage gets through. And let’s not forget about Jolly Roger, who gives us 1/1 pirates whenever we attack with our weapons. That can be a lot of damage if we play him early.
Amazing Card Draw
Lastly, let’s not forget our stellar card draw. Cutlass Courier draws us a pirate ever time we attack with our weapon, and we run a lot of pirates. Mic Drop not only draws us two cards but also gives our weapon +2 attack if we trigger finale, which is just pure value for a single card.
And then there’s the newest addition from TITANS, Gear Shift. For 1-mana, we trade two cards for three, which is good by itself. However, this deck will often run out its hand very quickly. In that scenario, we play Gear Shift and draw three cards for 1-mana, and that’s just music to my ears (hip hop music to be specific).
With all these factors together, we have a solid rogue aggro list that’s budget-friendly. Even though TITANS has pushed more mid-range and control strategies, aggro will always be a viable strategy for climbing the ladder in Hearthstone. So enjoy stealing some wins with all of your pirates and their weapons!
Thief Rogue Deck (Wild Format)
We’ll be running a thief rogue build for our Wild-format budget deck. This deck is all about playing cards from other classes.
By its own nature, Wild is just a more expensive format than Standard. While this deck is definitely more pricey in comparison, it’s still quite reasonable and would be considered a budget rogue deck by most Hearthstone players.
Deck Code: AAEBAaIHApfnA6H5Aw6qywOk0QPn3QPz3QOq6wOh9AO9gAS+gAT2nwTuoAS6pAS7pAT7pQTspwQAAA==
Deck List:
- x2 Shadowstep
- x2 Blackwater Cutlass
- x2 Parrrley
- x2 Prize Plunderer
- x2 Secret Passage
- x2 SI:7 Extortion
- x2 Swashburglar
- x2 Wand Thief
- x1 Maestra of the Masquerade
- x2 Reconnaissance
- x2 Swindle
- x1 Vanessa VanCleef
- x2 Wicked Stab (Rank 1)
- x2 Double Agent
- x2 Contraband Stash
- x2 Wildpaw Gnoll
This deck’s cost can vary, depending on how much you want to spend. The reason for this variation is that the legendary minion Maestra of the Masquerade is an entirely optional addition to the deck
She’s a 2-mana 2/2 that disguises you as a completely different hero/class at the start of the game. You get their hero power as well, and you’ll only change back to rogue once you’ve played a rogue card. She has some definite advantages and is on theme for the deck, but she is not central to the deck, and you might quite reasonably decide that she’s not worth the 1600 dust to craft.
Playing Cards from Other Classes
On to the deck itself. The goal here is to gain value by playing cards from other classes. This deck might seem a bit silly (which it is), but that does not mean it isn’t strong as well. This deck is great at generating value, which is big in Hearthstone.
Early on in the game, you have Wand Thief and Swashburgler, both of which give you cards when played (Wand Thief requires a combo, but Swashburgler is a Battlecry). With Shadow Step, we can play them multiple times to great effect.
With Vanessa VanCleef, we have the ability to take the last card our opponent played. Unlike most of our other cards, she allows us to choose what we get, rather than relying on RNG. Reconnaissance gives us deathrattles and reduces their costs.
However, the big MVP of this deck is Contraband Stash. Although it costs 5-mana, it lets us replay five cards from other classes that we’ve already played. Talk about value!
Tempo & Control
This deck also runs some nice tempo and control options. Prize Plunderer and SI:7 Extortion are solid sources of early removal to help us deal with those pesky aggro decks. SI:7 Extortion also has the trade ability so it can draw us cards if we don’t want to cast it.
Wicked Stab is nice control or simply damage to face if we’re playing more aggressively ourselves. Wildpaw Gnoll is a 3/5 with Rush that costs 5 mana, but it costs 1 less for each card from another class we have played. This allows us to play an early 3/5 that can either serve as control or simply be a strong tempo threat. Speaking of which, Double Agent is a 3/3 for 3-mana that creates a copy of itself if you’re holding a card from another class.
Card Draw & Combos
This deck also includes solid card draw and combo enablers. Secret Passage is excellent for both, as it’s a 1-mana card that provides us with a significant advantage.
We also have SI:7 Extortion and Blackwater Cutlass, both of which offer trade options, giving us some nice flexibility. Additionally, Blackwater Cutlass reduces the cost of a spell in our hand by 1 when traded, further boosting our combo-enabling ability.
All in all, this deck is quite solid, offering a nice balance of value generation and flexibility. It’s not as straightforward as the aggro deck mentioned above and may require a bit of a learning curve. Additionally, it’s more RNG-dependent, which can be seen as a plus or a minus depending on your viewpoint. However, once you get the hang of it, this deck can do quite well and provides a lot of fun.
Join the High Ground
In general, building fully functional viable decks in Hearthstone tends to be expensive. Each player will have a differing view on cost, so what constitutes a budget deck will vary. However, we think these two rogue decks definitely qualify as budget decks that are effective and viable for ranked Hearthstone.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for more gaming content!
Happy climbing!
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