In this first entry in our Cheap Shot series, we’ve got Jace “DrJikininki” Garthright—winner of 2017’s Americas Winter Playoffs—here to help you build a tournament-worthy deck without breaking the Arcane Dust bank. Competing without a complete collection can feel daunting, but DrJikininki says it’s very doable.

“When you’re first starting out, you want to build more aggressive, board-centric decks—they’re typically the cheapest, and pretty easy to pick up,” says DrJikininki. “Classes like Warlock, Paladin, and Hunter all do this very well, as most of their powerful cards are Rares and Commons.” There are plenty of examples of Basic and Classic cards that are strong and have seen play consistently over the years: Hunter’s Savannah Highmane, Paladin’s Truesilver Champion, and Warlock’s Doomguard, just to name a few. “I would stick with those three classes, but you should just start off with whatever you enjoy playing,” DrJikininki adds.

In terms of building a tournament lineup of your own, DrJikininki says that it’s important to craft cards that can multitask. “Make sure to craft neutral cards that can fit into a wide variety of decks,” he says. “For example, a neutral card like Knife Juggler can be played in many different aggressive decks, where class cards can only be played in their own specific decks.” He recommends thinking about the implications of crafting each card before doing so.

“Building a lineup this way is definitely difficult, but it can be done,” DrJikininki adds. “I would tend to lean towards aggressive decks, since they’re often the least expensive. A wide variety of cards are similar in the decks, and I would look to try and find decks with similar cards.” In the Year of the Raven, he recommends looking at something like odd-Cost decks using Baku, the Mooneater. “They run some of the same odd-Cost cards, so it may help you to go down that path.”

The question on everyone’s minds, though, is this: Can a player be competitive this way? “Of course,” DrJikininki says. “I remember one of my friends (Russel "Daninja" Dea) playing in a tournament qualifier on the Asia server with nothing but Boulderfist Ogre decks—and he won his first round! It may be more difficult, but it’s worth the hard work and dedication to achieve.”

Special thanks to DrJikininki for his insight into how to leverage a low-cost lineup to maximum effect! If you’ve got a great deck list to play that doesn’t include a ton of Epic or Legendary cards, share it with us in the comments.