Can We Scare Up A Cheap Druid Questline Deck? - Budget or Fudge It

Welcome to Budget or Fudge It, the zombie Hearthstone series that has arisen from the grave. Now that it's Halloween season, this series can embrace its truly scary identity by experimenting on decks Frankenstein-style, then asking the question: Budget or Fudge It? This article is going to be extra terrifying, with plenty of spooks and scares along the way. Off-meta Questlines? SPOOKY! Playing budget decks on ladder? SCARY! A new addition to a series that most people honestly forgot existed? FRIGHTENING!

While Mercenaries (rightfully) garners a lot of the attention in Hearthstone right now, we would be remiss to ignore Standard Constructed, a format in desperate need of new choice decks to play. Where better to start than with Druid, seeing as how the class is one of the kings of the ladder? And where better to start with Druid than with its Questline? And where better to start with Druid's Questline than by turning it into a budget monsterpiece?

Someone Left the Tauren Out in the Rain

The deck we're adapting into our experiment of the week comes to us initially from HSReplay, who have no idea of the crimes against nature that we are about to commit. This deck runs a heavy spells package to enable the powerful Glowfly Swarm and Umbral Owl, to give cheap tempo while working to complete the Quest with a variety of spells and minions that give our Hero Attack. Then, like any good Lost in the Park deck, it uses Mark of the Spikeshell to copy Guff the Tough, and Solar Eclipse to copy Mark of the Spikeshell to get another copy of Guff the Tough and by that point your opponent has probably conceded (and who can blame them, considering how long it took us just to explain the combo).

Most of our job is already done for us, as the core of the deck is relatively cheap. The only cards we need to replace are Guess the Weight and the aforementioned Glowfly Swarm. What options do we have for replacing these cards? The answer to that question lies in the following section, but I must warn you: Do not stare directly at the section's title unless you are prepared to be truly terrified.

Truly Terrifying Section Title

Because Guess the Weight is card draw, the first replacement that springs (get it?) to mind is Living Seed, which will draw and discount either Umbral Owl or Jungle Panther. It's not as potent, but it gets the job done.

Glowfly Swarm is trickier to replace, but we suspect we can manufacture its effect in the aggregate with Gibberling and all of our spells. Just like that, we're finished. Strangely easy this time. I don't suppose there might be some strange turnabout that sends a chill down our bones.

[Sound of Lightning, Which is Extra Terrifying Because Lightning Doesn't Have a Sound]

Of COURSE we're not done! This is HALLOWEEN, which means we have to get spookily meticulous about this deck, because nothing is scarier than someone on the internet spending a lot of time explaining something. Our first attempts to replace Guess the Weight and Glowfly Swarm were miserably simplistic: we haven't begun to dredge the depths of human horror (and by that we mean budget cards).

As good as Gibberling once was, we suspect that Vibrant Squirrel fits the deck better, as its Deathrattle gives us a HORDE OF SQUIRRELS FROM THE GRAVE to draw with Fungal Fortunes and buff with Arbor Up.

Vibrant Squirrel makes Living Seed a less reliable tool for drawing Umbral Owl so, unless you're a fan of 0 Cost 2/1s, we're better off looking elsewhere. Discover is often a good replacement for card draw, and Druid has a plentiful supply of cheap Discover spells. Because Nature Studies is already in the deck, we're looking to replace Guess the Weight with either Resizing Pouch or Guidance. Because Guidance can sometimes get us two spells, it gets the nod.

After all our mad science, the deck looks like this:

The Verdict

By replacing expensive cards with strikingly sinister budget options, we've created a deck that is both cheaper and ready to unleash madness upon a world of Quest Mages and Aggro Druids. If you have Guess the Weight and Glowfly Swarm, you can, of course, keep them in and have a perfectly normal time on the ladder. If, however, you have a taste for the macabre, you are hereby invited to adopt this unearthly fabrication and haunt the ranks of Constructed with our fudged version.

Do you approve of our ghastly deckstrosity? Did we get the verdict right, or do you think we are ghouling ourselves? Scare your thoughts in the comments!