Budget Gibberling Token Druid Deck List & Guide (Darkmoon Faire)

Our budget Gibberling Token Druid deck list & guide for the Darkmoon Faire expansion will teach you how to play this budget list. This guide includes Mulligans, Gameplay Strategy, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!

Introduction to Budget Gibberling Token Druid

Sadly, Druid didn’t get much development in terms of budget builds in Darkmoon Faire. Not only all the new Druid cards fit into more expensive builds OR are quite expensive themselves, but we also didn’t get (almost) any cheap Neutrals that could fill some downsides of the build. Unlike Demon Hunter, which also plays a similar, all-in, low curve build, but got more tools to support it, Druid went in a completely different way in Darkmoon Faire (a way that is impossible to build on budget). The only new card in the deck compared to last expansion is Wriggling Horror which, to be fair, is a really good one, but not enough to make a significant difference.

And so, it’s still a very similar build based around flooding the board, preferably with Gibberling, and then AoE buffing it. After that, you can either go for a finisher with Savage Roar or try to refill your hand with Voracious Reader to stay in the game for longer. The biggest upside of the build is how cheap it is – it requires no Epics & Legendaries. The downside is that it’s not performing as well in the meta as I would like it to, but sadly it’s the only option.

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Budget Gibberling Token Druid Mulligan Guide

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Gibberling – Probably the most important card in your deck, you always want to mulligan for it. Paired with a couple of spells, you can summon multiple 1/1’s, possibly even buffing them to 2/2’s right away.
• Other 1-drops – While not as high priority as Gibberling, you still want to open the game with a minion, so you keep cards like Blazing Battlemage or Acornbearer just to have something to play right away.
• Voracious Reader – It’s one of the only decks in which you want to keep Voracious Reader. The reason is that you drop your hand so quickly that having access to a refill is super important. Ideally, if you drop Reader early paired some buff it might survive more than a single turn and you might get more than one round of draws.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Innervate / Lightning Bloom – Keep depending on the rest of your hand. They’re a good keep with Gibberling (summon more 1/1’s), Intrepid Initiate (trigger its Spellburst) or Voracious Reader (empty your hand quickly to draw more cards).
• Adorable Infestation / Beaming Sidekick – Keep if you already have an actual 1-drop – those cards are bad or even useless by themselves on T1, but pretty good to play on T2 (or Coin out on T1) on a 1-drop.

Budget Gibberling Token Druid Play Strategy

Gameplay with this deck is quite simple, but most importantly your games are very quick. For that reason, it’s an interesting choice to grind ladder or finish some related Quests. You blow out your whole hand during the early turns, and then, unless you draw Voracious Reader at the perfect time, you most likely just lose the game if your opponent clears everything. The good news is that you can put A LOT of stats on the board early. For example, Turn 1 Intrepid Initiate + Lightning Bloom + Adorable Infestation + Beaming Sidekick = 4/5 + 1/2 + 1/1 on  Turn 1, but you skip your Turn 2 and your hand is empty. So you need that to carry your early game – and often it does. Don’t even try to play it slower, it’s not worth it – early push into Savage Roar finisher is your best bet.

That’s also the reason why Voracious Reader is so important. You run out of cards really quickly, so it’s super easy for Voracious Reader to draw 3 cards. What’s even better is that you run multiple buffs, so e.g. dropping her on the same turn you play Power of the Wild makes her harder to remove. I had some games where a buffed Voracious Reader survived for a couple of turns and carried the game. Without Reader, you rely on topdecks – you might still find the right cards, or you might draw your Innervate/Bloom with empty hand and the game will be over.

However, a card that is nearly as important as Reader is definitely Gibberling. With a total of 16 spells in your deck, including a lot of 0-1 mana ones, you have multiple ways to clone the card. Gibberling is definitely your biggest blowout card. With the right hand, you can flood the entire board with 1/1’s on Turn 1-2, and then if your opponent can’t deal with that efficiently (and lots of decks just can’t), you can follow it up with some AoE buffs such as Power of the Wild or Blessing of the Ancients and basically seal the game.

And that’s basically how the deck plays. Try to flood the board, buff the board, finish everything with Savage Roar. Try to close out the games around Turn 4-5 if possible, because you have no ways to get through Taunts or deal burn damage from hand.

Future Card Replacements for Gibberling Token Druid

There is no clear upgrade path for the deck, because it’s about as good as it takes. I’ll leave in a suggestion, but keep in mind that I haven’t tested it myself. The card I’m talking about is Greybough. In theory, this deck nearly always has another minion (or a few minions) on the board, so Greybough’s effect should be easy to activate. A recurring 4/6 Taunt minion would help a lot in many matchups. On the other hand, drawing it early would be terrible and it would get in the way of your Voracious Reader from time to time. And yeah, the card would obviously not be unkillable – any transform effect would get rid of it, not to mention that clearing the board BEFORE destorying it would also get rid of it. But in many cases, you could see it pop 3-4 times, which would be enough to win some matches.

Definitely DO NOT craft it, but you can test it out yourself if you want to.