Basic Deck Building: Druids

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Hey guys! This series is meant to provide new players with information and tips for building basic “starter” decks involving the 9 classes in Hearthstone. The idea is to explore basic card combinations and synergy and get beginners thinking about how to approach building or improving their own decks! These guides assume that you’re at least level 10 with the class being discussed and therefore have access to all of the class’s basic cards.

This week we’ll be taking a look at the Druid class. The key aspect of the Druid class in Hearthstone is “versatility”. Druids have a great variety of solid options in deck building, even in only the basic card set. Druids themselves can be considered a typical ‘jack of all trades’ type class. They have a mix of spell damage, physical damage through Hero attacks and solid minions with multiple types of abilities that allow Druid players to really go whatever way they want in deck construction. This we’re changing things up a little bit in that we’re going to take a look at our first “theme” deck. This Druid deck’s theme: Murlocs!

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[tabs] [tab title=”0″] Innervate x2
Moonfire x2
[/tab] [tab title=”1″] Claw x2
Grimscale Oracle x2
Murloc Raider x2
[/tab] [tab title=”2″]Mark of the Wild x2
Bluegill Warrior x2
Murloc Tidehunter x2
[/tab] [tab title=”3″] Savage Roar x2
Raid Leader x2
Razorfen Hunter x2
[/tab] [tab title=”4″]Swipe x2
Dragonling Mechanic x2
[/tab] [tab title=”8″] Ironbark Protector x2[/tab][/tabs]
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Theme decks are usually based around a certain minion type. The Basic Hunter Deck we looked at earlier could also be called a “Beast” theme deck, but I didn’t use the term then because I consider to Beasts to be a core mechanic of the Hunter class while Murlocs are a neutral card type that can be worked into anything.

As always, our deck uses only cards from the free Basic set of Hearthstone cards!

We’ve actually only got Druid minion in the entire deck this time around! Ironbark Protector is an 8/8 minion with Taunt that’s tough for your opponent to worry about in the late game. You probably won’t use it that often in this deck though as ideally you’ll win before you get to that point. Druids have great class minions, but the real key to this deck is the neutral cards!

Meet the Murlocs (and other neutral card friends)

Murlocs are annoying! They always show up in packs and make some of the most annoying noises ever heard in video game history. The same “swarm” feeling that Murlocs offered players that battled them in World of Warcraft is alive and well in Hearthstone. As you can see from the deck list, Murlocs are generally inexpensive minions and not too strong by themselves, but if played together offer some of the best minion synergy in the game. Usually this comes from buffing each other. Playing a Grimscale Oracle the turn after I play Murloc Tidehunter means that my two minions from last turn are now 3/1 and 2/1 and can hit for a total of 5 damage! Since Murlocs are so inexpensive, you’ll have potential for a ton of early damage with most starting hands.

Other neutral creatures in this deck can help out your Murlocs as well. Raid Leader buffs the attack of all your other creatures while Razorfen Hunter and Dragonling Mechanic summon additional minion tokens for their Battlecry and blend in well with the Murloc theme of quickly overrunning your opponent.

Now let’s take a look at our spells. To augment our Murlocs we’ve got a few different types of cards. Innervate gives you a little mana boost which can become important in playing a few extra early minions or getting just enough mana later in the game for a bigger card like Starfire or Ironbark Protector. Cards like Moonfire and Swipe are great for clearing the way for your minions to do damage. Mark of the Wild and Savage Roar let you buff your minions to do more damage or trade with your opponent’s minions more efficiently.

One really important part of playing any deck is the ability to use your class’s Hero Ability correctly. Shapeshift gives your Hero +1 Attack for a single turn and +1 Armor permanently. This ability is great for clearing out early minions your opponent plays early on as the armor helps you avoid taking too much damage. Make sure you don’t forget to use it absolutely every turn that you have the mana available! Even if you don’t plan on attacking, stacking up that +1 Armor will always pay off later in the game!

Now that you’ve got a feel for how the deck should be played, it’s time to hit the ladder! I was actually able to do 11 damage on my second turn with this deck by using a combination of The Coin, Innervate, and a few other cards. See if you can figure out how I did it! MMRRGGGRRRGGGHHHLLLLGGLLLLLLl!!!