With Murder at Castle Nathria launching soon, hype is reaching a fever pitch: Those interesting legendaries! Those powerful archetypes! "But," you ask, "what if we don't open the right Legendaries and don't want to use our Dust to craft something that might turn out to be garbage? What do we play then?"

We got you covered. We've devised 10 budget theorycraft decks (one for each class) that you can plug-and-play without needing to open any Legendaries or Epics from the new expansion (or from any expansion, for that matter). Open your packs, pick your favorite, and go have fun.

But first, there's a lot of other relevant content that you might be interested in:


Aggro Demon Hunter

Aggro Demon Hunter has seen better days, but thanks to the new cards from Murder at Castle Nathria, we might be able to change that. Demon Hunter has a plethora of incidental card draw with the new weapon Magnifying Glaive only adding to the pile of ways that Demon Hunter can not only allay the Cost of playing Bibliomite, but actually benefit from it some times. Dinner Performer is an interesting card to try out as a lesser Drek'Thar.


Token Druid

Herald of Nature fits well into a Token shell that gets new Treant tools Natural Causes and Plot of Sin to feed its Battlecry. The new 2-Drop Maze Guide slots right into a deck that wants to summon lots of little bodies and buff them on board. We hope you aren't sick of seeing Crooked Cook in these lists, because he's going to be showing up a few more times.


Face Hunter

We're all-in on Red Herring being a huge problem, specifically in Hunter. We're pretty sure that a 7 Mana Common hasn't made the cut in an aggressive deck since Bonemare, but Red Herring could change that. With Hunter's ability to reduce the cost of the Herring with Harpoon Gun and Stormpike Battle Ram, we're not expecting to pay 7 for it, anyway. Witchwood Grizzly with upside, anyone?


Infuse Mage

Skeleton Mage is certainly going to be a lot more fun if you have Kel'Thuzad, the Inevitable, which, for the purposes of this exercise, we do not. Instead, we're building around an Infuse package that abuses what Skeleton summoning effects we do have access to in order to feed Sire Denathrius, the free Rewards Track Legendary. Because our Skelly Spells are all Frost School, this means we can summon extra bodies from Frostweave Dungeoneer and Rimetongue for more Infuse ticks. We've even put in the synergy of Sketchy Stranger and Scuttlebutt Ghoul because no one stopped us.


Buffadin

There aren't a whole lot of changes to the Budget Buff package for Paladin (assuming one even existed), but Great Hall and Crooked Cook seem to fit together pretty nicely, if you ask us. The rest of the deck either gets Buffs on cards because they have Battlecry (thanks to Snapdragon) or because they have Divine Shield (thanks to Prismatic Jewel Kit).


Silence Priest

Selfish Shellfish is one of our personal favorite cards to build around in Priest, and one of the few Priest archetypes that can reasonably be adapted to a Budget list. Bless seems like a good way to take advantage of big Health minions like Sinstone Totem and Creepy Painting (just remember to Silence the Painting first). Meanwhile, Cathedral of Atonement is a really cool way to draw cards. Creepy Painting can also serve as a way to get extra copies of Shellfish, so we can finish off our opponent with the ol' Amulet of Undying Shadow Word: Ruin combo.


Contact Rogue

Field Contact hasn't been seen since the nerf to Efficient Octo-bot, but we're going ahead and bringing him back to feed cards into this Miracle-style Rogue whose entire gameplan revolves around playing a lot of cards to get big Stealth boys from Sinstone Graveyard. Does the deck have a Plan B? What a silly question, of course it does. Plan B is-- Look over there! *vanishes in a puff of smoke*


Evolve Shaman

Evolve Shaman looks like it should be a pretty fun deck. Once you get Convincing Disguise Infused, you can turn your board of small minions into, potentially, a board of larger minions. We've added in a few of the new Totem synergy cards as well, specifically Party Favor Totem and Carving Chisel, because they give us more bodies to evolve and more minions to feed the Infuse of Disguise and Famished Fool.


Implock

We don't have access to Imp King Rafaam as finisher or Impending Catastrophe as card draw, but we can still swarm the board with little imps and buff them up with Vile Library and Shady Bartender. There are enough Battlecries in this deck that we've even convinced ourselves that Snapdragon is a good idea, especially since we have Dinner Performer to possibly pull out a Flame Imp. Mischievous Imp isn't a bad target for buffs, either.


Buff Warrior

Imbued Axe and Anima Extractor are pretty good buff payoffs for an Enrage-style Warrior deck, and that inspired us to go all in on handbuffs with Conditioning and Overlord Runthak. Acolyte of Pain makes the cut as a great synergy with Sanguine Depths. Are we insane to think that Crazed Wretch might be a legitimate powerhouse?


More Class Coverage for Murder at Castle Nathria

Want to look at what we've put together for another Castle Nathria suspect class? The navigation links below can take you there in an instant!


Have your own idea for a theorycraft deck? Post it to the site with our deckbuilder, and don't forget to include a guide!

Are you planning on making your own budget decks when Murder at Castle Nathria goes live? Share your thoughts in the comments below!