Last week, we took a look at one of the most powerful Neutral Legendary cards currently in the game: Genn Greymane. In All you need is Genn, we presented budget decks built around only this one card of Legendary (or Epic) rarity for Paladin, Shaman, and Warlock. You can build some nice midrange budget decks with Genn. But what about its Odd counterpart, Baku the Mooneater?
Baku the Mooneater is equally good, if not better than Genn. Baku decks, Odd decks, tend to be more aggressive than Genn decks. Some of them can play a long game, but most of them have to win quickly or perish. In Hearthstone, being aggressive is generally a good idea, so you can expect both good performance and quick games from Odd decks.
In this article, we will take a look at three popular archetypes: Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, and Odd Face Hunter, how viable budget versions of these decks could be, and how to upgrade them to full-powered versions. While all three are aggressive, they still play out somewhat differently: Odd Paladin is the strongest of the three and the most willing to go for a long game, Odd Face Hunter is the weakest and the most all-in of the three, and Odd Rogue is in between the two. Nonetheless, all three are perfectly viable decks for ladder, even up to Legend rank.
Budget Odd Paladin
2,900
Odd Paladin occupies a space somewhere between pure aggro and genuine midrange decks. It is aggressive, yes, and sometimes it can win games very quickly. However, it also wants to make good use of its improved Hero Power and often happily trades its plentiful tokens in order to maintain board control. Thanks to its endless stream of tokens, it is also ready to go for some long games: constant use of Hero Power means that it can spend its cards slowly and grind out the opponent, even to the point of running control decks out of removal.
I used this budget version of the deck with great success during my Legend climb this season. It is a fully capable deck that can also put up a fight in mirror matches against full-cost versions of the archetype. Obviously, as a budget deck, there are things it cannot do as effectively as the full-cost version.
There are two main weaknesses compared to full-cost versions: weaker tempo swings (because of the lack of Corridor Creeper) and less reach without a board (because of the lack of Leeroy Jenkins). It is also missing out on the most fun card in Odd Paladin, Witch's Cauldron, which weakens its resource generation in aggro matchups – the Divine Favor used instead is perfectly capable in control matchups.
It is particularly difficult to replace Corridor Creepers. Corridor Creeper is arguably the most powerful card in the archetype, as it becomes cheaper while in your hand and eventually – rather soon, in fact, thanks to all the token generation from your Hero Power – costs nothing to play, enabling huge tempo swings. In this budget version, I have chosen to include Tar Creeper instead. While it is less swingy, it can still provide a high-health body that the deck needs to play around board clears, and as a Taunt minion it can protect the rest of your board. I also played with Paragon of Light, and I actually like it a bit more than Tar Creeper in this deck, but it is a rare card that does not currently see play in any meta decks, so it is difficult to recommend crafting it just for this deck. If you happen to have any, you can try that one too.
Upgrade path:
- Stormwind Champion -> Leeroy Jenkins: While Corridor Creeper is the best upgrade you can craft for the deck, Leeroy is still a strong choice for the first upgrade, because it also upgrades all other Baku decks and is from the Classic set, so you get a lot of bang for your buck. Stormwind Champion gives the deck some late-game power, but it is an expensive card for such a fast archetype, and it is better to have some reach that is independent of the board instead.
- 2 x Tar Creeper -> 2 x Corridor Creeper: Corridor Creeper will rotate out of Standard format in April, so spending 800 dust on a pair may sting a little. However, its power is undeniable. It is the highest winrate card in the archetype and the best card to keep in the mulligan in all matchups. If you want to play Odd Paladin a lot, you will want the card.
- Divine Favor -> Witch's Cauldron: Both of these cards provide additional resources, but Witch's Cauldron is far more flexible. It can swing aggro mirrors to your favor and still generate a lot of value in control matchups as well, whereas Divine Favor is mostly useful in control matchups.
Full-cost Odd Paladin is actually not that expensive. With these changes, you’re already there and ready to dominate the ladder!
Budget Odd Rogue
Odd Rogue is the premium pure aggro deck in the meta at the moment. Once you have Baku the Mooneater, it is also remarkably easy to build a budget version of Odd Rogue that is able to deliver almost as good results as the full-cost version! This budget deck is definitely capable of climbing to Legend and played a major role during my own climb this season.
Baku upgrades your Hero Power to a 2/2 dagger instead of a 1/2 dagger, and that makes a huge difference: suddenly, your Hero Power weapon is capable of controlling the board in the early game, enabling you to develop your minions and hit face with them. As an aggro deck, your own health is rarely a huge concern, so you can afford to use your health as a resource that allows your minions to deal damage over multiple turns instead of being used for trading or getting traded away.
Most of the time, Odd Rogue wants to dagger up on turn two, but sometimes you can also get a couple of one-drops on the board and start swinging away with Cold Blood on one of them – an especially powerful opener against slower decks.
Of course, there are some sacrifices that you need to make in order to play a budget version. In this case, you are sacrificing some reach (no Leeroy Jenkins), some late-game removal capabilities (no Vilespine Slayers), and a big refill (no Myra's Unstable Element). None of these sacrifices prevent you from winning plenty of games. There is still reach from hand in the deck thanks to Southsea Deckhand – during the history of Hearthstone, there have even been Miracle Rogue builds that went with the Deckhand over Leeroy – and after playing the deck for a while, I was actually surprised how little I missed the hard removal from Vilespine Slayer. The biggest loss is Myra's Unstable Element, which is a phenomenal card: filling your hand with fresh cards is incredibly powerful, and you can usually take fatigue damage for a couple of turns while you finish the game with all of those resources.
In order to shore up these weaknesses, the budget version of the deck turns to Nightblades for some reach that can hit face despite Taunt minions and to Blink Foxes for some random goodness: when you don’t have the great cards, it often makes sense to use average cards with a potential upside, and Blink Fox will win some games for you that a full-cost Odd Rogue without them would lose.
Upgrade path:
- Nightblade -> Leeroy Jenkins: Classic set. Neutral. Goes in many decks. There is simply nothing better for aggressive game plans than Leeroy Jenkins. While I consider Leeroy the second-best upgrade for this deck in particular, its wide potential across multiple decks makes it a great choice for the first craft.
- Nightblade -> Myra's Unstable Element: I consider Myra's Unstable Element the best current Rogue class card. It is simply phenomenal. You can use it to dig for lethal or you can use it to refill your hand. In a Miracle Rogue with Fal'dorei Striders, you can use it to build an instant board. It is great in Odd Rogue, it is great in Miracle Rogue, and it even goes into some versions of Tempo Rogue.
- 2 x Blink Fox -> 2 x Vilespine Slayer: Blink Fox is the weakest three-drop in the deck in the current meta, thanks to the prevalence of Hunters making Tar Creeper a better option. Therefore, it is the card that makes room for Vilespine Slayer for some additional power to push through big Taunt minions.
Budget Odd Face Hunter
Once upon a time, Face Hunter was one of the most despised decks in Hearthstone. Hit face, hit face, hit face, win. It was the epitome of perceived lack of skill in the game. Perceived is the key word here, as face decks are not quite as easy to play as they seem. With only a small window to win the game, each point of damage counts, and you need to play very sharp Hearthstone for the few turns your games last.
Pure face decks, the fastest and most single-minded variety of aggro decks, have hardly been viable in Hearthstone for some time. Correspondingly, Odd Face Hunter is the weakest of the three archetypes we are examining in this article. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a pure climbing experience with this one, because the other odd decks got me to Legend before I could start testing this. That said, I was able to maintain an above 50% winrate with it in Legend, so it seems capable enough.
The trick to playing Face Hunter is realizing that while you love your Hero Power, it is not the play you ideally want on turn two. The ideal curve I strive for with this deck is a one-drop on turn one, two one-drops on turn two, and Animal Companion on turn three. After that, it is good to try to weave in those Hero Powers, including potentially using Coin just to weave in a Hero Power – it turns that Coin into three points of damage.
Of course, there are many alternative lines, but hopefully you get the main idea: you want your minions out there fast so that they can start dealing damage to face, because you are not looking to maintain board control for long. Every trade you make has to be justified by more damage going to face over the course of the entire game because of it, usually because it keeps your minions alive for a turn or two longer, or because it keeps you alive for a turn longer to at least be able to use Hero Power one more time.
In the mulligan, you are therefore really looking for multiple one-drops to get the game started. This might already clue you in that you never want to keep Tracking in your mulligan when playing Face Hunter. In this deck, Tracking is a mid-game card, best drawn when you’re out of cards so that it can give you the choice between three cards, one of which can hopefully win you the game.
Face decks are all about damage math. Use Kill Command for three damage now or try to save it for five damage with a Beast later? Which one will result in the opponent being defeated faster? You need to know your damage potential and your opponent’s defensive capabilities – Taunt minions and healing – in order to optimize the flow of damage from your hand to their face.
I’m actually not even sure if this “budget” version sacrifices anything compared to a full-cost version. The main upgrade is Leeroy Jenkins, which can replace Clockwork Automaton for six damage to face earlier in the game, although that six damage can be prevented with a Taunt minion. Other than that, there are no real upgrades, only some different paths you can choose from, such as replacing something with Leper Gnome, which can be a menacing threat in the right circumstances.
With Face Hunter, the main question is why to build and play it in the first place? You can build a perfectly capable Hunter deck for less than a thousand dust, so what’s the point? There are a couple of things I can think of. First, if you already crafted Baku to play some of the other decks, then why not add this one to your repertoire while at it. Second, there are differences in matchups between Face Hunter and other Hunter decks: Face Hunter cares less about board clears than other Hunter decks and it is more capable of fighting against Priests and something like a Mecha’thun Warlock than other Hunter archetypes. Sure, it does not have the steady performance level across a wide variety of matchups that other Hunter decks have, but it can do surprisingly much in the right meta.
Budget Odd decks: viable!
It is crazy how strong Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane are. They will remain in Standard format for another year, as they are scheduled to rotate out in spring 2020, and it really looks like Odd and Even decks will dominate the next year of Hearthstone.
Odd decks are cheaper than Even decks and at least as powerful, and both variants open up the opportunity to hit Legend with a single Legendary card. It is difficult to speculate what will happen after the rotation, but budget Even decks will sorely miss Bonemare, as they are a bit slower and rely on Bonemare for much of their late-game punch. Odd decks are faster and easier to fill up with whatever cheap commons are available, making them an easier option. However, much also depends on the playstyle you enjoy: the more aggressive approach of Odd decks or the more midrange style of Even decks. Either way, both have their place in the collection of every Hearthstone player.
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
[…] Article: Baku it up: Budget Odd decks in Hearthstone’s Rastakhan’s Rumble […]
Well written. I especially like the upgrade paths, that’s very clever.
Another great fun article, Old Guardian–thanks!
In your Genn article, you wrote that all 3 decks were viable but Budget Even Pally had a clear advantage over the others for climbing ladder. My interpretation of this article was that you’re saying all 3 budget odd decks have ladder-climbing potential and are roughly equal. Would you agree with that statement, or would you say there is one odd deck that stood out against the others?
From the article: “Odd Paladin is the strongest of the three and the most willing to go for a long game, Odd Face Hunter is the weakest and the most all-in of the three, and Odd Rogue is in between the two.”
I did my Legend climb this season with the budget Even decks and with this Odd Rogue and Odd Paladin (mostly with Paragons of Light, but I’m not sure if there is any real difference seeing the way I ended up using them was mostly for the 5 health and Taunt, which are the same as Tar Creeper). Could not test Hunter properly, as I already hit Legend by the time I got to it, but while I had >50% winrate with it in Legend, it felt the weakest.
If I were to rank all six decks, it would be roughly as follows:
1. Odd Paladin
2. Odd Rogue
3. Even Paladin
4. Even Shaman
5. Odd Hunter
6. Even Warlock
However, this depends on the meta. We have seen a lot more Mecha’thun decks as of late, for example, and Odd Rogue is clearly better against them than Odd Paladin, as they generally excel at clearing token boards. Meanwhile, Odd Paladin is great against Hunter. Even Paladin can also overtake the Odd decks and be the best one in the right meta, and it is the overall most reliable deck that cannot really be hurt too badly in just about any meta. The top-3 – Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, Even Paladin – as such seems clear to me, the order may change depending on the meta.
Old Guardian, I would recommend Blackwald Pixie for a F2P budget version of odd hunter. It is a premium statline in 3/4 and can give you that 6 damage you need from 2 hero powers when you usually run out of cards and bearshark is an aggressive (can’t be targeted) minion which would give the deck more punching power.
Bearshark is too slow for what the deck wants to do. I also like the Automaton better than the Pixie, as I do not find myself playing the Pixie often on three, and Automaton is superior on seven, as it needs to be cleared, which can buy another turn.