Budget Jade Druid
- Last updated Apr 6, 2017 (Un'Goro Launch)
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Wild
- 10 Minions
- 20 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Jade Lotus Druid
- Crafting Cost: 1280
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/20/2016 (Gadgetzan)
- RedneckBudha
- Registered User
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- 3
- 17
- 31
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Battle Tag:
RedneckBudha
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
167
Jade Druid in general is a decent budget deck in general, but not everyone has access to some nice cards like Raven Idol, which is from League of Explorers or Fandral Staghelm, so I decided to tinker around with the netdeck to see what could work and this is what I got.
Tech Cards
Moonfire: It's a great anti-pirate early card, or late game it can be used to cycle through deck with Auctioneer.
Acidic Swamp Ooze: Also great against those weapon decks, worse case scenario it's dropped on curve for early body. If you don't want to run this I recommend Loot Hoarder to fill in the mana slot and give card draw.
Short How to Play Guide
This deck runs like any other jade druid deck. You want to ramp early mana, card draw, and golem stats.
Basic rules:
ALWAYS play your first jade idol as a 1/1 golem. DO NOT shuffle it into your deck early on or you will only earn dead draws.
If you see a shaman, warrior, or rogue, try to mulligan for Swipe, Acidic Swamp Ooze, Wrath, and Moonfire. Getting the early removal cards really puts those pirates in their place. If it's warrior, I'd especially hard mulligan for those powerful early game cards.
Always use Nourish to draw. Even if you're in a mirror match, always use Nourish to draw. You have plenty of other ramp cards, and drawing is extremely important in this deck.
If you have a lot of cheap 1 or 2 mana spells, feel free to drop Gadgetzan Auctioneer early for that deck cycle. He's a decent soft taunt (whoever lets them live against a druid deserves to lose) and if you have Innervate left, you can get a lot of strong draws with your first auctioneer.
For your SECOND Gadgetzan Auctioneer AND your SECOND Jade Idol, save them until you have 5 or less cards in the deck. Then drop your Auctioneer, shuffle the Idol, and let your easy value end game run amok. This is how you win, by drawing through your deck so you can drop those two and keep playing free 1 mana golems.
Intermediate rules:
Normally, save that Feral Rage for armor (especially against pirates), but if you see an Azure Drake on the enemy field, go ham and eat its face. Same deal if your enemy plays a Gagdetzan Auctioneer too. Pretty much, if it has 4 hp, eat it unless it'll kill you.
Most players know that Wrath is crazy good, that's because it is. It synergizes with your Azure Drake and it gives good early game removal, whether it's used to draw a card or not.
Wild Growth is a nice ramp card, but I usually try to save at least one for the late game. Being able to pop it for the free 0 mana draw spell is nice, but even more so if you have an Auctioneer on the field. If you have 10 mana, pop Wild Growth but DO NOT PLAY Excess Mana until AFTER you play Gadgetzan Auctioneer. That 0 mana draw a card suddenly becomes a 0 mana draw 2 cards. This works especially well if you wait until the start of your turn, so you can play Auctioneer then pop 0 mana to draw 2 cards, and have 4 mana remaining for a swipe or whatever spells you have remaining.
"But, Mr Budha, what if I have some better cards and and not F2P?"
Well, then tech inFandral Staghelm first, since he is ridiuclously powerful in all current druid decks (drop an Acidic Swamp Ooze). Then, feel free to add Arcane Giant x2 for free 8/8s midgame. For them you can get away with dropping one Wild Growth, and possibly a second Ooze. Last tech card I like is Doomsayer. I'd be willing to drop Jade Spirit for his 2 mana board clear, or even Moonfire if you don't see a lot of aggro decks at your rank. Last notable tech option for those with cashmoneyYOLOswag is Raven Idol, another personal favorite of mine since it's a 1 mana spell that lets you find more spells (or minions too if you have Fandral).
Mulligan Rules
The Mulligan is pretty easy and straightforward. In general, low drop cards (0-3 mana) are worth keeping, plus Swipe. Other cards are not worth keeping at all, unless you have Innervate. With Innervate, it is worth keeping Azure Drake or Jade Spirit but not Gadgetzan Auctioneer.
More specific rules:
See a Rogue/Shaman/Warrior? Keep Acidic Swamp Ooze, otherwise get rid of them. Also try to keep Moonfire, Wrath, and Swipe to get rid of those pesky pirates.
See a Mage? Feral Rage. Save it for Flamewaker. Otherwise, get that early ramp and pressure them with Jade Golems. Try to bait out their Fireball(s) and Polymorph(s) with your golems and Azure Drake.
See a Warlock? Feral Rage helps against Imp Gang Boss, and all of your other removal spells are nice, but ramp and draw is super important. Try to get your draw a lot and get that 10 mana Auctioneer cycle working. If they're a ZooLock, then focus on maintaining board control.
Priest? Pretty much similar to Warlock/Mage.
I'm forgetting the other classes. Does anyone still play Hunter is a joke right now, and even Paladin is pretty easy to beat. Anyfin can be a coin toss, but still favorable for the Jade early/midgame. If it gets lategame then start worrying.
Oh yeah, Druid. Mirror match is a clusterfuck. OTK Druid is pretty beatable if they do the C'Thun combo, and if it's Malygos combo it's a little less favorable for the Jade, but still pretty beatable.
That's it. No more mulligan rules. Go win some games. I still pop in every so often and I reply to most comments so if you want, leave one and I might say something.
EDIT 1: Added in some basic and intermediate rules for the deck, as well as cards to tech in to make it a non-budget deck.
Edit 2 (1/5/17): Over the past four days I've been playing this deck on my F2P account (EU) and been keeping track of the stats. As of right now, the deck is 11-2 with a max winsteak of 6. It is 2-0 against pirate warrior, and 6-0 against priest decks (dragon, reno, and basic-inner fire). It is 1-1 against paladin, and 1-1 against warlock. The Paladin loss was due to horrible draws, and the Warlock was playing a hyper aggro deck I couldn't keep up with. I will keep playing and editing this every few days with the new stats.
Edit 3 (3/20/17): I've gotten well over 100 games (326 according to my deck tracker, not including mobile matches) with this deck, both on my F2P EU account, and my main NA account. I completely forgot to update this with all of the stats, however the win percentage is roughly 65-70% in the current meta. I've tried the deck with a few alterations (such as playing Loot Hoarder instead of Azure Drake or dropping the Acidic Swamp Ooze for other early cards). In general, the deck runs about the same, and has become even better after the aggro nerf. Shaman are still a bit of a problem to beat, but aggro warrior is easily one of the best match-ups. Lately I've been seeing more Dragon/Menagerie Warrior, and Jade is still slightly favored depending on the midgame. I've also gone ahead and included some basic mulligan rules. If I can get my recording software to work properly, I will play a few games with this deck and put them on here for the "how to play" section.
Edit 3 (4/6/17): With the loss of Azure Drake and Living Roots, new cards need to come in and replace them. Currently I am trying the new Un'Goro card Earthen Scales and Druid of the Claw. If draw power becomes a problem, or aggro dies down, then I may replace Druid of the Claw with Loot Hoarder for more cycle.
I want to replace moonfires and add a legendary in there which legendary should i add for this deck(i finished Loe)
Can you make a More On Budget Version of this deck or if there is i would. Love to examine it. thank you
The only way I can think of making this more budget would be to replace both Azure Drake for Loot Hoarder. The rest of the deck is pretty staple and required. I suppose it would also be possible to drop one Gadgetzan Auctioneer for Druid of the Claw, and with those changes the total dust worth of the deck is less than 1000 which is the budgetiest budget you can get and still be viable.
I'm a newbie player and I this is the first deck I fully copy from the internet. I was already playing with a cheaper version of this one, but today I decided to build it the way you did. I'm enjoying it so far and I hope I can finally advance to level 18 on the ranked =P . Thank you!
You're most welcome, glad to know the deck is working well for so many players! Keep an eye on this, because by the end of Janurary I plan to update it with W/L stats and some mulligan rules.
Did you record any videos playing with this deck? I would like to watch you playing with it, to learn more about how you play it, specially in the early game. Sometimes I have a hard time facing opponents that draw a lot of small minions (ie Murloc Paladin decks).
I do have OBS for streaming/videos however the quality tends to be poor (I do everything on a 4 year old laptop) and I don't really know how to fiddle around with it. I would be willing to make a video though if people seem interested in that idea.
I am trying to record videos of the deck, but every time I record, the video lags. I'm not sure how to fix this problem because I am not particularly tech savvy.
Edit/PS; Did you manage to get past rank 18 with this deck?
What I can replace for Raven Idol? How do I use? I find more spells or minions?
Raven Idol could replace one Ooze and one Wild Growth, or one of the moonfires. If you're doing well with moonfire then keep it in, but you have a couple of options. I always use Raven Idol for spells though because of the synergy with Arcane Giant (if you tech that in too) and Gadgetzan Auctioneer. If you're playing Arcane Giants, replace the Jade Spirits with them.
Thank you very much for this deck! I've played this one for a while (2 weeks lmao) and its really good. Though i would highly recommend switching one Feral Rage for a removal, preferably a Mulch (Naturalize works just fine for me as i don't have any dust). That saved me quite a lot of times! I find it especially challenging to play against dragon priests and aggro war decks, but only if i have a bad starting hand and/or im extremely unlucky with topdecks. I'm currently rank 14 on a slightly modified deck (+ 1 Fandral Staghelm - 1 Acidic Swamp Ooze). Thanks for making this again!
Well, this is a budget deck. Normally I would toss in a Fandral, however I would actually drop Jade Spirit for the Mulch/Naturalize. And you are most welcome. I intend to update this once I reach 100 games played with the deck (Hopefully by the end of January).
I love this deck but I think I am most likely not playing it to it's fullest extent. I have your budget version (This version) with an Aya blackpaw instead of a jade spirit. I keep losing most of the time to almost everything, mainly to Jade Shaman, Face Pirate Warrior, Dragon Priest.
It would be so helpful if you could write a guide on how to properly mulligan against each class and how to play against most match ups.
I also think my plays are most likely sub optimal, sometimes I'll be wondering do I innervate + coin into an aya or do I play a lower cost minion? etc.
I am currently rank 17 (Dropped down from 15 full stars since I started playing this deck, but I really want to learn how to play it properly).
Alright, I'll include some mulligan rules as I play the deck and earn the stats on it. The simplest thing I can say is, against Warrior and Shaman in particular, mulligan anything that costs 4+ mana except for Swipe. You really want your Moonfire, Wrath, Acidic Swamp Ooze, and Feral Rage. These will give you a proper early game to turn the game around. If you get a Jade Idol, it's not a bad idea to have that turn 1 1/1, but if you get two I'd mulligan one of them away.
Harrison would replace an Ooze, but personally I am not a fan of Harrison except in Reno decks. Sylvanas is a nice card and I suppose you could get away with dropping either an Ooze, Wild Growth, or Jade Spirit. She's a generally strong card but I haven't tried teching her into a jade deck yet because she doesn't have synergy in it.
Ehh I would not recommend it. The deck is meant to be low mana cost (tops out at 6) and run a LOT of spells. The spells are what allow you card draw with your Auctioneer. If you really want to add in taunt minions, I've always felt Sunwalker to be underappreciated.
Aya blackpaw?
While Aya has value even with 1/1 and 2/2 golems, I feel like she's too slow for this deck, which is very control oriented. I tried her in my non-budget version but eventually cut her out for a Wild Growth (the non-budget version only runs one). You could add her in instead of a Jade Spirit or Acidic Swamp Ooze if you want, but personally I only like her in my Rogue deck.
I feel bad crafting her now :C . Should've made Fandral