Hearthpwn

if you want a rather amusing twist on this deck try removing 2x argent squires, 2 flame imp, 2 knife jugglers and 2x harvest golem and replace them with 2x elven archer, 2x amani berserker, 2x young priestess and 2x raging worgen.

if the worgen dodges the silence/removal you have can have what is essentially an OTK on turn 4. 

archer/demonfire worgen -> some combination of powerwhelming/soulfire. 

i havent played it enough to know if its better than golems and jugglers but it sure is more fun.

so solid and shockingly consistent.

some other fun cards ive been playing around with are young priestess, wolf riders, abusive sergeant and the dark iron dwarf. 

tinkmaster isn't necessarily budget but i think its a solid tech card to answer a sunwalker/sylvannas/tirion  and a decent amount of people might have it if they bought anything at all during beta. 

my preference would have been to keep the mana cost the same but add in a modifier like "blizzard freezes all minions with a play cost of X or less". this way you could still hammer weenie decks but wouldnt get to own the mid game too which is what the problem was imo.

mages do have other spells that were generally ignored like arcane explosion and arcane missile both of which combo nicely off wild pyromancer and apprentice so maybe those see more play. 

mages still have ice block and incredible burn spells. i doubt they are going away. 

i like aishi's version a lot. i think pyromancer is pretty key slow down the insane speed of warlock rush. i might find room for at least one frothing berserker just to take advantage of the incredible synergy between whirlwind, acolyte, wild pyro etc. 

i just finished an 11-3 run. my first reaction was "hell yeah" followed by a quick glance at the clock which told me this run had taken roughly 3 hours of play time ?! 

anyone who kept track of their average arena run length pre/post patch i am curious if the gold/hour played has gone up or down. despite the shiny spilling out of the chests at the end of my run i feel like going 7-3 twice in the same time period was better. 

i just subbed out the dark irons, azure drakes and argent commandeers for shieldmasta's, a fen creeper/spiteful smith and 2 sunwalkers in my rogue deck. 

the other key card ive been running is blood knight. sniping the argent squires shield is the nuts and if they are forced to silence or trade into the blood knight its a win for any future taunter. 

this is the only way i feel my rogue deck has a shot in the current meta. rogues cannot out aggro this and using the dagger to kill stuff just feeds right into the warlocks plan of getting you low enough to soulfire finish.

this has improved my matchup a lot against this warlock deck and hunter otk deck and im slightly better (thanks to my board not being easily cleared) against the mage freeze and burn you down deck. im sticking with it because these 3 decks are 75 percent of the play matchups now.

the meta will probably be control next week lol. 

i have faced this deck or some slight variation is every other game in ranked/unranked over the past couple days. i had to put back in shieldmasta's in a few decks just to finish a couple dailies because i was getting rolled before turn 6 vs this thing. i think this deck works because it attacks the lack of hard taunts. sure you argus but you might not have anything good to argus if you've been trying to keep the horde of imps under control.

imo if you want the most consistently deep arena runs  pick pally, druid or mage every time they are up. i have 175 arena wins since i started maybe 3 weeks ago and still have 1k gold and an arena run in progress and could probably build some great decks for constructed without spending a dime. most of these wins are paladin, druid or mage. 

the reason i say this is because the board clearing power that paladins, druids and mages can consistently draft from their basic cards can compensate for poorer drafts either from skill or luck and can compensate for play mistakes when you are learning the game. you will also flatten bad/mediocre players who will over extend into board clears and make good/great players play differently because they know better than to over extend.

this is not to say the other classes cannot win or do well in the arena. ive gone 8-9 with everything but warlock (still learning how much you can life tap and not kill yourself) but consistency is god in ccgs and i think mages, pallies and druids are able to draft the most consistently powerful decks. priest is also very strong but the games are long and i do not particularly enjoy the play style even if it does win.