Despite being a free-to-play game, "Hearthstone" has often proven to require quite a bit of financial dedication from its players in order for them to climb the competitive ladder. Some historically strong decks such as Reno Mage have needed tens of thousands of dust to craft, featuring upwards of 8 legendary cards. Cheap aggro decks, on the other hand, have always existed as well.
Having occasionally also found themselves becoming top-tier, competitive decks. This new archetype from the Witchwood expansion is certainly one of them, and might be among the cheapest of the bunch.
The power of the SMOrc
Face hunter is nothing new to "Hearthstone". It's a simple, logical conclusion considering all of the class' aggressive tools and the hero power that directly damages the face. Now what happens when you permanently upgrade that hero power from dealing 2 damage to dealing 3 damage? This is the premise by which this Deck was conceived. Witchwood introduced a new legendary neutral minion, Baku the Mooneater.
This minion upgrades your hero power if your deck has no cards with an even mana cost. This restricts the players' selection of cards to 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 cost cards. So one important question remains. Can hunters create a competitive aggro deck with that restriction?
No higher than 3
Evidently, yes. Using only 1 and 3 cost cards, hunter is able to create a legend-quality tier 2 deck. Well, except Baku himself, who costs 9 mana to play. The deck includes the staple hunter cards like Unleash the Hounds and Kill Command, and many cheap minions to keep up the early pressure. Lucas "Duck" Mercader reached rank 21 legend with some interesting cards like an Ironbeak Owl to nullify the occasional taunt minion, as well as 2 Blackwald Pixies to get additional value from the hunter hero power.
The deck has no mid-lategame value, and no draw mechanics. So you do need to win quickly, or you'll soon find yourself gradually over-run.
The cost of hitting face
So how difficult is it to obtain this deck? Well, Baku is the biggest portion of the cost. As a legendary minion, it costs a whopping 1600 dust to craft. That alone may make this deck inaccessible to new players. Then again, you could always be lucky and get it from a pack. Now, what does the rest of the deck cost to craft? Well, 8 cards in Duck's decklist are neutral cards obtained by leveling up the hunter, so no cost there. 19 cards are common, costing 40 dust each for a total of 760 dust. And to wrap it all up, the two rare Eaglehorn Bows will run you a total of 200 dust to craft.
So to make this deck from scratch, you will need a total of 2560 dust. It is practically unheard of for a deck to reach legend with 19 commons and 8 neutrals.
This is certainly not the cheapest decklist available in "Hearthstone", but it is just about as cheap as a tier 2 deck is going to get. There are also some variants of the Odd Hunter that may reduce the cost negligibly, but Baku the Mooneater is where the bulk of your dust is going to with this card. So if you do manage to get Baku from a pack, then you owe it to yourself to try this deck out. There will be few other times that you will be able to reach legend for a mere 880 dust.