Hearthpwn

 Just started using this deck as an returning player and went from 23 to 20 without losing a single game. Works great, for now. (using rexxar, never used it though.)

I'm really enjoying this deck! I only started playing a month or so ago, and with a Rexxar upgrade, I'm doing very well, thank you! If I wanted to put in something to destroy a weapon, what would you suggest, and what to remove? Acidic swamp ooze? I took out one unleash the hounds for Rexxar so far. Anyway, thanks for the good budget decks and guides! They're helping my play tremendously. :)

If you need an in-depth guide for this primitive deck, you should start by reading the manual.

Could Houndmaster Shaw fit in this deck?

No it doesn't have any synergy. This deck is focused around doing face damage, and rush minions don't do face damage any earlier than regular minions. You also don't want to be killing off your beasts for board-control. You're trying to combo your wolves with buffs...  and almost every combo you use will cost ~8 mana, meaning you'll never have the mana to ALSO give your wolves rush by using Houndmaster Shaw. Tundra Rhino would be better, and even it doesn't fit very well into this deck.

Update: After having "mastered" this deck I'd consider it fairly strong between rank 15 and 10 (which isn't to say that it doesn't have numerous vulnerabilities, or that it's "strong"). You want to either play early Secretkeepers and buff them, or focus on early beasts and buff them, or focus on building a Lesser Emerald Spellstone combo (which is combination of both secrets and "beasts" [Houndmaster, Crackling Razormaw] and maybe even a Secretkeeper). Getting 1 or 2 secrets, and 1 or 2 Lesser Emerald Spellstones, and 1 or 2 Secretkeepers is probably the best first-draw you could possibly get. If you draw multiple card-types, try to pick between a beast-oriented early-game or a Secretkeeper and/or Lesser Emerald Spellstone-oriented early-game. Often, you're going to get a bad mix of cards... and it's going to ruin your chances of winning. However, for what it lacks in power, it makes up for in consistency. I use Bearshark and  Secret Plan instead of the Candleshots. Secret Plan and Tracking help with finding cards you need when you have a bad hand or bad draws. Anyone who pays-to-win or has decent cards is still going to destroy you. Mages, Warlocks, and Rogues are particularly vulnerable to this deck; If they get bad draws, you'll win even if they have a stronger deck. I will consider buying Rexxar to make this a complete deck, but considering the fact that it takes a year to grind a single Rexxar card, I doubt I'll ever end up actually doing it. Going to try OP's Paladin deck next, but even the 600 dust I need for that deck could take me a lifetime to grind. If this game gave me 25 gold for every 3 wins, I might actually consider putting some money into it. Until then, I stand with the resistance. I believe there's probably a way to remove the Freezing Traps, the Secretkeeprs, and the Unleash the Hounds - and build a stronger deck. Unleash the Hounds has saved my life/won me the game a few times, but as I rank up it becomes more and more useless. Freezing trap still screws me over, no matter how smartly I use it; and if 4 secrets+Secret Plan is enough power this deck, then I say take them out. As for the Secretkeepers, chances of them doing anything is 50/50. I've never gotten one above 3 attack power, and usually people just kill them off before you ever buff them. Overall, even though my win-rate is ~55%, this deck is consistent enough that you can probably break past rank 15 or even rank 10 as long as you just spam games, and play "perfectly" every game. It's relatively easy to maximize your chances of winning (if winning is even a possibility). I don't understand most of the other deck archetypes, so if you know how the pay-to-play decks operate, you might be able to use your cards more wisely. But I'm not sure if that matters, because if you don't kill your enemy off ASAP then you're going to lose with this deck.

This deck isn't bad for F2P players who don't have a lot of dust. However, it relies far too much on getting a Lesser Emerald Spellstone and two secrets before turn 5, with additional reliance on Houndmaster and Crackling Razormaw in order to buff your doggos.

I've encountered far too many games where I'm "unlucky" and can't even play a minion before turn ~6 due to the lack of overall minions in the deck. So what happens is - I rely on Wandering Monster/Animal Companion just so I can get any minion(s) on the board, and if I don't draw the Lesser Emerald Spellstone (or already have it), then I end up burning through secrets without ever buffing it. And trust me, throwing out 2 doggos at turn 7 is going to do nothing for you.

It also makes mulligans very difficult because, if you don't draw the Lesser Emerald Spellstone or get it in a mulligan, then you're split as to how you are going to build/play your hand. Do you focus on early beasts or early secrets? If you focus on secrets, then you're banking on drawing a Lesser Emerald Spellstone sooner rather than later so you can buff it. If you focus on early beasts, then it's like you have no clue if or when you're going to draw secrets or a Lesser Emerald Spellstone or if you're going to be able to combo them, and you better do some good face damage before you're enemy draws stronger cards (which P2P players have tons of - even in standard - so ridiculous). If you try to hang on to a few secrets and a few beast buffs, then you are 100% committed to drawing that Lesser Emerald Spellstone before turn 6 at the latest - and you'd be astonished by how often the game shuffles both of them to the back of the deck. I've lost to hunters using nothing but starting-hunter cards and neutral cards, simply because I couldn't play anything and they were throwing out beats left and right.

Ultimately, if you can get the secret, secret, Lesser Emerald Spellstone, Houndmaster, Crackling Razormaw "combo" off, then you might win, but frankly there are so many waveclears that it's a complete gamble as far as I can tell. The fact that Explosive Trap requires your mana, your turn, and your enemy to attack you... just to do 2 damage to enemy minions, is insane. I'd say the vast majority of the time you are only using your secrets to buff your Spellstones, you aren't using them strategically (unless an early situation allows you to do both).

I ended up getting something like a ~55% win rate with this deck, whereas a random wild deck that I replaced with standard cards ended up netting me a ~70% win rate. That deck has no gimmick or theme really, but somehow I win more often with it . My best guess is that it allows me to pull out more beasts earlier, and do a lot more face-damage before turn 5. Then I can widdle them down, even if I have junk cards. Both these decks cap out around rank 15 for me, so it's hard for me to say if one is better or if the 70% win-rate deck is just better at stomping noobs. I'm sure I can push it further, but I'd disagree that there is anything particularly complex about this deck, or that any mistake you are likely to make is going to be responsible for your loss. It's very straight forward.

I think one of the biggest issue with this deck are the Freezing Traps. They take up two spots, you need them because they help you build up your Lesser Emerald Spellstones, but 80% of the time returning a card to players hand just ends up hurting you (especially if the enemy predicts it). If that minion is damaged, they get all of their health back, and if they have a battlecry they cast it again when they are replayed. There are very few scenarios where Freezing Trap will save you, because if you're playing it towards the end of the game, then you've probably already lost.

I'm not saying the deck is bad, and I don't know if there's another cheap alternative that would work better (except perhaps the "wild" deck I'm trying, but maybe I've just been lucky). I'm going to keep messing around with this deck, but having 7 "secret" cards, 4 of which aren't very powerful, and relying so much on Lesser Emerald Spellstone makes this deck very rigid and lacking in utility. It's a one trick pony, and in the grand scheme of things that pony isn't very strong when you're playing against people who can kill you with one card. It feels to me like a budget Mage or Paladin would be better, because they can play their cards with less discrimination.

I've had a F2P mage beat me just by casting every single spell she drew when she drew it. Very strange. Warriors, in particular, can stuff their deck with taunt cards and completely prevent this deck from ever doing any damage; while also building up armor every turn. Any paladin or priest with a couple of good cards is going to stomp you. Druids are a complete toss up because they have so many playstyles. Warlocks and rogues are relatively easy for me to beat. Shamans overwhelm me with some cheese cards that let them have 10 4/4 minions out at turn 6.  Other hunters are 50/50. Mages will either destroy you, or they will die without ever doing damage to you. I'm speaking "in general" and based off my experience. I'm no theory-crafting genius.

I'm not sure if it's worth grinding a Rexxar (as a F2P player) just to have the more effective version of this deck. There might be a 2000 dust deck that's much better, that you get easily by starting a new account.

climbed to rank 14 (and still going) with this deck with a few changes, pretty impressive for the price of the deck

but this deck is unwinnable against any kind of druid (really), and the meta warriors, UNWINNABLE

against other classes if you get good draws, and keep breathing down their neck you got it bro

 EDIT: rank 11 now

What changes did you make? I'm planning on crafting this deck at some point and am going to take out one Unleash the Hounds for my Deathstalker Rexxar

I did -1x candle -1x secret keeper +1x acidic swamp ooze and +1x rexxar

rexxar is pretty significant, I found myself unable to go beyond rank 13 at one point because I didn't have rexxar to close down the game that I should have won in certain matchups.

i love this deck, its so nice! could it use leeroy though?

I'm running this deck with a few alterations and it's working great so far, I changed both Secretkeepers and one of the Unleash the Hounds for Deathstalker Rexxar, Snipe and Savannah Highmane.

Gotta say that Savannah Highmane isn't a card that saved my skin that much, but I felt that changing the secretkeepers for Rexxar and Snipe really improved my experience with the deck.

Of course you need a little more dust to craft this deck with Rexxar, but if you really want this to work, it's definitely worth the dust investment.

Now you can take this with your own thoughts, since I'm currently just a rank 19 player, with a 80% winrate on the deck with notable wins against Pogo Rogue, Baku Rogue, Quest Rogue(lots of rogues, yes, I know) and Shudderwock Shaman.

Works great against Mage, Warlock from my experience! overall great deck really 

That's actually true you have to play pretty well with this deck

This is a budget list, but Deathstalker Rexxar fixes part of this issue.

is secretkeeper good?  or maybe another tracking could be good

I like it because it allows for decent scaling if they don't deal with it right away, but it is one of the cards you can take out if you wanna upgrade or experiment with the deck.

Lose to odd Paladin, token druid, tempo mage, and kingsbane rogue, which is the entire meta between rank 15-20....

Wait, I had no idea that the meta was so different up there at rank 15ish, but I feel that due to their misplays I am sure it will actually be pretty good in the end if you can exploit misplays. Also, sorry I haven't come out with the detailed guide on matchups hopefully when I do, literally later today, it will help a little.

What are you talking about? I literally have a 58% winrate with this deck from rank 5 to 3 which is pretty solid it isn't a waste of time... With Rexxar it is a lot better but the point is this is a budget deck and it still performs well.

Fun budget deck +1. Definitely relies heavily on the spellstone, completely agree with you saying to always keep it. Thanks for making these budget decks it helps when you don't have many Boomsday cards yet. Made a video if anyone is interested, thanks.